A LIGHTING store a few miles away from us is permanently closing next month.
It has been in business for 72 years. It’s an independent, small business, not part of a chain, and sells all kinds of lamps, light fixtures and the accessories that go with them, including shades, harps, bulbs, sockets and that little thing at the top of a lamp that keeps it all together. Everything electricity has engendered in the way of illuminating human existence, it has sold.
During the last couple of months, I visited the store a few times. I was one of the vultures picking over its stock, all of which has been deeply discounted.
On one visit, I picked out a reading floor lamp as a Christmas gift. It was 50 percent off.
I asked the salesman — a stocky, black man with neatly-tied dreadlocks and bulging eyes — for the lamp with the dark finish. I recognized him from previous visits. After he had carried the box out from the stockroom, I asked — though I felt bad — if I could have the one with the silver finish instead.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“I guess you’re used to people changing their mind,” I said, smiling apologetically.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, without skipping a beat.
And when he turned to go back to the storeroom with uncomplaining fortitude, I saw — as if in a vision — the throngs of nerve-wracking, indecisive, neurotic, uninformed and sometimes grateful and pleasant customers he had served over his many years in this brilliant showroom of lights. He had mastered the ability to overcome irritation with courtesy. He was a retail warrior who had learned a thing or two about human nature.
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