Shopping Story

Today I went with a group of seven other American women into Milan to do some shopping. We took the subway and had to change from the Yellow line to the Red line to the Green line to get to the area we wanted to shop in. Many of us had never been to the area before, so it was a bit of an adventure.

As we were wandering around, we came across a shop selling leather goods - purses, wallets, etc. Being women, we went in! There were signs posted in the store, but they were in Italian, so we didn't know what they were saying.

We had been in the store about five minutes, and we were all busily looking at things. Suddenly a few of the ladies who were in the back of the store started coming forward saying the owner had told them we had to leave. We were all a bit disbelieving, thinking they must have misunderstood. Then the owner came up to us and said, "Go. You leave. No touching. You leave. Now."

So we left.

But I can't tell you how surprised we were. Apparently the signs in the store said "Don't Touch the Merchandise". Tell me this, how do you buy a purse or wallet without touching it to see if it's configured the way you want it? I don't understand that at all.

Also, we obviously were not Italian. We were all talking in English - and not with Italian accents! Why would she assume we understood her signs?

Another example of Italy's wonderful customer service!

Oh, and at least two of us were getting ready to buy something. Her loss.