They never miss an opportunity to not sell you something

As I was at the gas station yesterday (I'm constantly amazed that they're open on Sunday!), I couldn't help but remember two really ridiculous stories that happened to us shortly after moving here:


One evening after work my husband stopped at the gas station to fill up his car. As he did this, he noticed that they were offering a football for a few francs and a fill-up at what seemed like a bargain price.  He went in to pay and picked up a football out of the huge display in order to buy one.  The lady at the counter then explained that the offer didn't start until tomorrow, and that she wouldn't couldn't sell the football to him.  He couldn't believe it and thought he had misunderstood, so asked if she could explain it again only to get the same response.  At the time, we had never heard of anything so ridiculous, especially when all the relevant signs and displays were in place.  Oh yes, the rules.  It was one of our first experiences with the strict rule-following everywhere here. Of course, since then we've experienced many more even more ridiculous things, but since it was one of the first, I still remember it.  We were just shocked that anyone (especially a commercial enterprise) would miss an opportunity to sell someone something!


Not shortly thereafter, we went into a bike shop with my bicycle-enthusiast in-laws to check out their stuff.  We tried to make small talk with the shopkeeper (they happen to speak very good french), but he simply wanted to know why we were there interested in looking at bikes as it was October and "the end of the season".  "Why would you want to buy a bike now?" he said, "it's getting cold out."  Now, in the states, the off-season would be exactly the time you'd be dying to sell bikes, no? For instance, a huge sale might be called for to move last year's stock before the next year's bikes arrive.  Needless to say we haven't been back to his shop, but if I refused to go into every shop this happened to me in, I wouldn't be able to shop at all anymore.  Amazing.


Happy Monday...