Nicholas DiBiase
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Poster: Nicholas DiBiase @ Thu Jun 17, 2010 8:02 am
As Danny led Hape around the store, Hape noticed that as usual, most of the store’s patrons looked like they hadn’t played sports in quite a while. It seemed to be a nearly universal phenomenon : these big athletic chains attract dilettantes who will buy the most costly gear and have it gather dust in their closet, or, in the case of high-tech clothing, will wear it to any occasion save that for which it was designed. Folks who are serious about a sport, Hape found, would usually seek out a small specialty store like Runner’s Galaxy or Lacrosse Barn, where the employees tended to give something resembling a hoot about the sport in question, and the owner was often on premises. Hape himself looked to Advantage when he needed to get himself re-shod (which, for a notorious toe-dragger like him, was at least six times yearly). However, it was much better for Hape to sell to the bigger chains like Sports Authority, as the corporate buyers tended to be less discriminating (they only cared about the bottom line, not about a somewhat negative performance review they’d read online) and the customers at the stores were much more likely to buy high-end items with frequency – it was a known fact that Escalade-pushing neophytes buy the most expensive gear possible, with the hope that it’ll improve their play and give them something to talk about with their buddies (“What stick you got there, Bill?... Oh, the Frightanium 6? I heard that’s a real cannon – let me give it a whack?”).
Hape wasn’t really listening to Danny as the latter prattled on about which lines had been moving for him, overall foot traffic versus sales volume, the primacy of his location, and other banal details. Hape was instead looking at the girls in the store, taking inventory of the local stock. Hape had decided a few days ago that he was going to seek for himself a steady girlfriend.
Danny managed to snap Hape out of his lecherous reverie with a brisk
“Hey! You hungry? Let’s go over to Hattie’s and get down to brass tacks.”
Hape hated that expression, but he was indeed hungry. Hattie’s was a standard-issue 1950s-themed diner, awash in chrome and tufted vinyl. The two padded over there, sweating slightly in the morning sun.
Settled into a cavernous booth, Hape perused the sticky menu. Standard fare : burgers, shakes…. He came across a club sandwich that sounded good, and decided to order it sans fries. The placed their order with the perky, tattooed waitron and descended to the alloy fasteners.
“Hape, I gotta be straight with you," confided Danny.
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Nicholas DiBiase
@Hepnova
(26,635)
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