Swim Shop Experience

[jackk78]

The seals on my googles were wearing out, so I stopped by a swim shop on the way home from work last night. They've got a good selection for both competitive and recreational swimming. In the cooler months, they slim down their recreation supply and focus more on the competitive side of things.

When I got there, the only other people in the store were a mom with two twin boys. They were looking at the jammers section. I went over to the rack of googles. A female employee came out from the back carrying a box. She set it down on the counter and went over to the family. I was close enough to overhear their conversation.

"Can I help you find anything?" she asked.

"They need practice suits for swim team, but I'm a little overwhelmed," answered the mom. "I never realized there were so many choices."

"For swim team, they're going to want to wear a competition suit," replied the employee.

"Is this not the right thing?" the mom asked indicating toward the rack of jammers.

"Some competitive swimmers wear jammers, but we generally don't recommend it. They create too much drag in the water."

"Isn't this what they wear in the Olympics?" asked the mom.

"Those suits are made out of a special fabric. Most of the schools don't allow them any more. They're really expensive and wear out quickly. For competition, we recommend the brief style for boys. They're right over here." She lead them to the rack containing all of the brief cut suits. "The longer life fabrics like this," she said holding up a suit, "are good for practice. They last a long time before they wear out. I'll give you some time to look and check back in a bit. If you need to try anything on, the dressing rooms are right over there."

The mom thanked her. On her way back to the counter, the employee asked if I needed help, but I told her I was okay. She picked up the box on the counter and started to unload it.

The boys stood there looking nervous as the mom looked at the brief suits. Eventually, she gave one to each of them and told them to try the suits on. They went into the dressing rooms. After a minute, the mom told them to come out so she could see how they fit. The boys both came out wearing the brief suits, clearly not comfortable with the amount of skin they exposed. The employee went back to help them.

"How's everything going?" she asked.

"Good, I think," replied the mom. "Do these look alright?"

The employee examined the fit. "They're a bit loose in the back. You don't want to see any slack in the fabric. It will be looser in the water. They can probably both go one size down." The employee went to the rack, came back with the smaller suits, and gave them to the mom.

"Try these on," she said handing them to the boys who went back into the dressing room.

After a minute, they came back out wearing the smaller suits. "That looks perfect," said the employee. "Was there anything else I can help you with today?" she asked.

"I think that's it," said the mom.

"Great. You can bring those up whenever you're ready."

I'd found a pair of goggles, so I brought them up to the counter. The employee checked me out. As I was leaving, the boys came out dressed again and handed their mom the swim briefs. She walked up to the counter to check out.