No Offense Son, It's Time To Buy American

The Reward Club points sure are piling up on my Best Western card, a free continental breakfast for me and my cohort is so close I can smell the burnt waffles. I am writing you from Sarasota, FL which is the last stop of our working tour of the sunshine state. First we hit Boca Raton for a day off at the beach before the grueling (apologies to Bhuddist temple builders and toothpaste box factoryites that may be reading) week ahead. The beach temperature was 92 and more impressively the water temperature was 84. The warmest ocean water I've ever stepped into to be sure.

What followed has been 6 straight work days at various independently owned and operated NB shops. Each shop has an owner of vast varying degrees of appreciation, cooperation, expectations, and overall gung hoe-ism when it comes to our one day operation. Each of which must be quickly and accurately sized up by the team to ensure proper reaction and professionalism (i.e. see how hard we have to work). Some of them are heavily involved......they've flyered the parking lot for weeks and put adds in the paper announcing our arrival, they hang out with us offering friendly suggestions (wouldn't that sign be more effective over here? can you move the trailer 6 feet to the left? etc etc). Some of them take the time to grumble about the marketing department back at the headquarters as if we can pull some strings for them somehow. Some even share their sales numbers with us, punching in key figures on their store computers upon which Boom and I gaze and ooooh or ahhhhh appropriately. But most of them just want a couple extra boxes of our promo socks and a couple extra sales and to send us on our way.

One of the most interesting cast of characters came in Miami. This store is located in an extremely glitzy and classy mall. The type of mall, as Boom was heard saying, that contains stores you only knew existed due to their inclusion in rap lyrics. A first for the team, this stop required us to move our little show inside to the center of the mall which how should I say this.......really sucked! The owner, whose real name I will not divulge but for the sake of this story we will call him Finn Finnerman, was firmly implanted in the gung ho category. A nice enough gentleman was Finn. He was sure to send down a couple of spanish speaking staff members to help with the large non english speaking sneaker buying community in the area. He even helped out with greeting folks with us during which the following exchange took place.

A large older man with a straw hat, Hawaiian shirt and leather sandles zig zags his way under our pop up tent all while staring down at his open cell phone he held out in front of himself. Finn inquires as to whether the man would like to try on some running shoes and receive a free pair of socks.

"I'm not shoe shopping today, I'm car shopping," he replies, without even honoring ole Finn with a glance.
"Oh, I just bought a Honda Civic. I love it," Finn says in what he thought was a helpful response.
Then comes the hum dinger of the day.
"No offense son....it's not time to be buying foreign, it's time to be buying American."

This last line was spoken with an unwavering aura of authority normally saved for a general in the midst of directing his troops. It was the type of statement that somehow seemed to warrent a salute in return.

The use of the word "son" was particularly authoratative and demeaning as the two men were no more that a few years apart in age. The fact that he was still entranced by his cell phone also suggested his overall supremecy. I got the feeling that it wasn't only Finn that was beneath this mans level of importance, but each and every one of us.

Finn was taken aback but shook off the blow and actually recovered quite nicely, at once leveling the playing field and acquiring the admiration of the two mobile team members in attendence.

"It is what it is," he said. That's it. That was his response. "It is what it is." So simple. So effective. He didn't opt to debate, or snap back. He just acknowledged there was a difference in opinion, and that was that. He went on to detail to Boom and I the ups and downs of all of his previous car purchases and we politely listened as we both stashed away the winning line for future repeated usage.

The straw hatted man wandered away, still staring at his phone and oblivious to Finn's existence, when he suddenly turned back. He approached me, repeated his patriotic commercial on buying American then asked me whether or not Hummers were made in America. I told him that I wasn't sure but I thought that in fact they were, that they seemed as American as American could be. Satisfied, he wandered off to find a dealer.