A customer came into our store last Saturday who had not been in for quite some time. He entered, stopped for more than a few seconds at the front door, looked around and then he did something that made my day – he smiled. He didn’t smile at me, he smiled at himself and I was fortunate to catch his face at that moment. I watched him take a few more steps into the store and continue to look around. I finally caught his eye, we greeted one another and he said, “I haven’t been in for a while and I’m enjoying this. Let me look around for a bit before we chat.”
He walked past our discount table where we have fly lines and some discontinued items on sale. He then walked looked at one of our luggage walls with FishPond, G.Loomis, Orvis and Filson. From there he walked through the clothing displays, paused and looked at the 50% off rack and then went to our wading wall where we have waders and boots from Simms, Orvis, Patagonia and Cloudveil. He looked at some of the new items we have on display and then wandered through our reel area where we have products from 10 different reel manufacturers. He paused, looked back at me and smiled again. He then walked over to look at the fly vests and outwear and turned around to look at our rod wall were we have rods from 8 manufacturers. He again paused and spent a few minutes looking at rods and then looked at our book and DVD wall to peruse the titles we have. From there, like a kid in a candy store, he wandered into our fly tying materials section and walked up and down the aisles looking at our inventory. By this time we was getting close to where I was standing and I asked if he needed any help. “Not yet thanks – but I’m having fun !”
By the time he eventually worked his way over to me he had been in the store for at least 45 minutes. We shook hands, exchanged pleasantries and he asked, “How many fly line manufacturers do you now carry ?”
“Well, let’s see… seven at last count.”
We talked about his family and how work was going and our conversation turned, as many do these days, to the economy. Of course we eventually got back to talking about fly fishing and he said that last week he started to get ‘the itch’, started thinking about fishing this year and wanted to come in to see us. As we finished our conversation he looked at me, smiled the same smile he had when he walked in and said, “This has been fun. I haven’t been in for some time and things have changed here – I’m impressed. I’ll be back next week.”
“Thanks for noticing.” Then I smiled.
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