If you saw this sign – what kind of establishment would you think you’d be entering?
A bottle shop… right?
Trust Margaret River to find a way to make the local bottle-oh sound classy… it was the fellows walking out with a bag of ice and a slab of beer that gave them away…
What next?
The Margaret River Regional Food Centre for their local supermarket?
Today we had our annual social club Kids Christmas Party at Adventure World. Always a good day out this represents the reason I pay my weekly two dollars to the work social club as it is such good value. I pay $15 a ticket… normally adults pay $42 and kids $34… a saving of $92. And it is only the one function. Bargain!
Over the years we have got this outing down to a fine art. Rashies, hats and sunblock for everyone. Towels. Seats for adults (because). One bag with lunch consisting of 3 baguettes filled with various fillings chopped into thirds. One large container of drink. And if the temperature is below 30C, light jumpers – hey that Freo doctor can get cold you know. Today’s maximum was 23. IMHO just a tad on the cool side for swimming but I digress.
Now. I’ve been a bit slack this year on the exercise front and I’ll admit that I’m not at my most svelte so I needed to upgrade the boardies and rashie which – to be honest – were a little snug.
So I got up early to pick up the baguettes from the Kirkwood Deli and then popped by the local surfshop for a quick browse.
The surf shop is big. It’s like a supermarket sized surfshop. There are racks and racks of bikinis, boardies and rashies not to mention several different brands of thongs (the ones you wear on your feet), a large selection of sunglasses and all manner of other surfing and social paraphernalia (gee whiz that’s a big word… had to look up the spelling).
But could I find anything remotely attractive to try on? Attractive on me?? No. Nothing.
The three (thin) bored teenagers (two boys and a girl) chattered at the raised checkout island in the centre of the store and pointedly ignored me as I tried on some shorts (One size so wide they fell off my hips – that takes some doing, the size down so tight and so low-waisted I looked like a bizarre dressed up sausage) and then started surfing the aisles again. Finally one spotty youth with sand in his hair slouched over and asked if I was okay? “Yerright?”
“Ah no actually. I’m looking for a pair of boardies – to the knee would be great and would you happen to have a rashie that isn’t quite so skin-tight?”
“Yeah well those are the boardies” – he said pointing to the rack I was standing next to full of microshorts, “and all the rashies are tight. That’s how they make them. Maybe you should get a tee-shirt.”
“Great” I muttered. Resentfully. No helpful suggestions there. Silently screaming – couldn’t you please HELP ME? Surely there must be something for the slightly overweight, over 40, want to spend some time with my kids in the sun mum?
But no. There isn’t.
I did find a nice tee-shirt though.
Today I checked out my friend Marshall’s new enterprise – The Good Store. The idea behind this neat shop is that everything for sale shall be of great design – and it should actually work!
So often you see beautifully designed things that turn out to be drawer clutter or simply ornaments because they simply cannot do what they say they can do. Not at The Good Store. Think of it as a very useful present buying shop.
I first discovered Marshall’s intentions while he was working with me. I happened across him – in a suit – talking to customers at my local shopping area. I was vaguely out to lunch on a day off so I didn’t really get what he was doing – but his guilty reaction to my innocent – Hey Marsh what are you doing here? alerted me to a mystery.
Very soon we were ensconsed in Leaf – drinking tea and viewing his logo concepts. I thought it was a brilliant idea and it certainly explained why he kept asking where I bought things.
That was a year ago. The Good Store will probably open tomorrow and can I urge you to check it out. I’m going to write out a “Goodie” list and leave it at the store so should the need arise to buy me a gift you can just ask Marsh.
My transaction today was the first through the new till! How exciting!!
Marsh – I think your store is very… er… good.
You can find it at Shop 2, 363-367 Albany Highway – just up the hill from the Broken Hill Hotel.
