Great service almost gave me a heart attack: iLIVE

In South Africa we are so used to shoddy customer service that we get shocked when we get good service. A young lady almost gave me a heart attack at the Herbert Evans Art Supply shop in the Rosebank Mall.

As you have already figured out, I was out to get some art supplies – paint and sketching pencils to be precise.

I was scratching my head about what I should get my wife for her forthcoming birthday for months. I wanted something different from my usual electronic gadgets – last year I bought her a portable Blue Tooth car kit.

My gifts are always practical and many of my ex-girlfriends deemed them boring (which is why they are now ex-girlfriends). For her 31 birthday I gave her a car. I mean I could have bought her flowers, perfume or the other stuff deemed by many to be romantic – but I reckoned a car was more practical uses than flowers.

Back to the art supplies, I thought she would appreciate a painting as she had been redecorating lately – buying new rugs, curtains and little artifacts. So a new 30X40 landscape or seascape would really brighten up the lounge, I thought. A portrait I did of her back when we were still dating hold pride of place in her parents’ house. My mother-in-law refused to let her take it with her when she moved in with me.

I haven’t painted in more than five years, so I wasn’t shocked when I went to check my art supplies and found that the paint had dried up into beautiful-looking gunk-in-a-bottle art pieces. I reluctantly threw them into the rubbish bin.

I headed for Herbert Evans Art Supply to buy six colours, black, white, red, blue, green and yellow. I had collected five of the colours in 500ml bottles but could not find white in that size. I could only find white in a 2 litre container. I requested assistance. A pretty young lady came to my assistance and went looking for the white paint.

She found one at the back and just as she handed me the bottle she happened to mention that the 2 litre containers were actually R1 cheaper than the 500ml bottles. My eyes popped out of their sockets. I checked and lo and behold, that was correct. So I took all the 500ml back to the shelves and picked up the 2 litre containers. I thanked her as I paid and left.