August 5, 2007

BYBS : buying a wallet

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Last week, I felt the need to get a new wallet as the old one had become a relic. Every time I took it out of the pocket to pay for something, it looked like it would fall apart, and give up the ghost. So, I ended up telling a friend about my need for a new wallet.

He told me about a shop that, in his words, was,"one of the best leather shops in our town."

I just smiled. If you knew my friend you would have smiled too. Everything that he knows about is usually the "best in town." Not wanting to offend him, I readily agreed to go with him to the said shop. After looking through what they had for sale, I decided to pick my choose from the shop. After all, I was buying only a wallet, something that cost only about 500 rupees (about 10 USD), and there was enough variety in the shop to choose from.

After I had selected a piece, I got ready to pay for it. This was when it happened. A small incident but one that caught me totally unprepared. The guy at the counter, the owner of the shop, would not take any money from me. He seemed to know my friend well and was unwilling to take any money from him or a friend of his. But, there was no way I was going to come out of the shop with a wallet that I had not paid for. In the end, he accepted the money.

I can not say why but the little incident left me feeling good. I have friends who run shops, but they always tell me "business is business" and that "if a horse befriends grass, what is he going to eat." In other words, they charge fully for whatever they have to sell and, in truth, I have never found anything wrong with it. But, then, to meet someone like the guy at the wallet shop feels like being at an oasis in the middle of a huge desert. It made me smile, and it made me want to be help every person that I met, in some way or the other. it also made me feel that life and people are not bad at all. There is good everywhere, and we have to just let go and let the good happen to us.

Happy BYB Sunday and have a great week ahead!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kindness often shows itself in the most expected places. That makes us think about it even more, and maybe gives us some encouragement to share the feeling ourselves in some random act for some random stranger.

SandyCarlson said...

Great story! And now you have something to put in the new wallet. Such people are priceless, and the memory of their generosity lasts forever, I think. Happy BYB Sunday.

Anonymous said...

Have a wonderful story. May your wallet never be empty.

DoubleDeckerBusGuy said...

Every so often, there's good in retail! :)

Marilyn said...

That's a great story.

I did this a lot when I was a new business person but I soon found that I had a lot of friends that were only friends when they needed a sign. Now I really think before I give anything away and I ussually make them pay for the matrials if not labor or mark-up. My reasoning is that I don't want to profit from my friends and family but I can't afford to support them.

That shop owner is a wonderful person.

Unknown said...

interesting the people we meet sometimes :)

refreshing like rain & micro miniskirts

PlanetMars said...

another example of ARK - Act of Random Kindness. Let us spread ARK. :)

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