{"id":32994,"date":"2015-11-15T01:00:07","date_gmt":"2015-11-15T06:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=32994"},"modified":"2018-01-15T20:30:41","modified_gmt":"2018-01-16T01:30:41","slug":"qotd-shopping-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/11\/15\/qotd-shopping-in-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Shopping in Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"

The shopkeeper in Germany does not fawn upon his customers. I accompanied an English lady once on a shopping excursion in Munich. She had been accustomed to shopping in London and New York, and she grumbled at everything the man showed her. It was not that she was really dissatisfied; this was her method. She explained that she could get most things cheaper and better elsewhere; not that she really thought she could, merely she held it good for the shopkeeper to say this. She told him that his stock lacked taste \u2014 she did not mean to be offensive; as I have explained, it was her method; \u2014 that there was no variety about it; that it was not up to date; that it was commonplace; that it looked as if it would not wear. He did not argue with her; he did not contradict her. He put the things back into their respective boxes, replaced the boxes on their respective shelves, walked into the little parlour behind the shop, and closed the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t he ever coming back?\u201d asked the lady, after a couple of minutes had elapsed.<\/p>\n

Her tone did not imply a question, so much as an exclamation of mere impatience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI doubt it,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not?\u201d she asked, much astonished.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expect,\u201d I answered, \u201cyou have bored him. In all probability he is at this moment behind that door smoking a pipe and reading the paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat an extraordinary shopkeeper!\u201d said my friend, as she gathered her parcels together and indignantly walked out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is their way,\u201d I explained. \u201cThere are the goods; if you want them, you can have them. If you do not want them, they would almost rather that you did not come and talk about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel<\/em><\/a>, 1914.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The shopkeeper in Germany does not fawn upon his customers. I accompanied an English lady once on a shopping excursion in Munich. She had been accustomed to shopping in London and New York, and she grumbled at everything the man showed her. It was not that she was really dissatisfied; this was her method. She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[831,62,1118,57,41],"tags":[948,159],"class_list":["post-32994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-europe","category-germany","category-humour","category-quotations","tag-jkjerome","tag-shopping"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8Aa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32995,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32994\/revisions\/32995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}