Saturday, February 18, 2006

Shopping For a Treadmill

Yesterday we spent 9 hours in the area visiting a bunch of exercise equipment stores looking for Mr. Right Treadmill. If I am counting my fingers right we went to 8 stores, maybe 9.

Our objection was to find the best for the lowest…. Or the most for what we were willing to pay. Anna was armed with printouts from Consumer Reports on-line comparison charts.

The first store, a discount store, there were nobody around that give you any information, and it appeared they didn’t have but three very low graded types of Treadmills, and one of them was only partially assembled, so I am not sure I should counted that one or not – maybe it did teach us one thing, don’t go to a discount store if you want to talk to a salesman that should have all the information.

The second store we visited had a salesman to give us his full attention and he had all the answers. His machines seemed a little on the expensive side. And he smirked a lot at us. By his body language and his smirking I could tell he thought we were funny with our Consumer Reports and questions. However, once, when lifting an end of one of the machines to show us the space saver quality the body strain caused him to fart. Then I got to smirk. He who smirks first, gets smirked at last – or something like that.

Another fitness equipment store the salesman gave us his total attention, the only thing he had no attention to give. He was a muscle-bound jock who I think only had the expertise in weight lifting. He kept telling us wrong information on the machines we were asking about.

We went to a big sports discount store that had a big selection, but could not find anyone to spend some quality time with us, so used the restroom and left. Besides, they had a big delivery and assemble fee, which all the stores seem to have.

We went to a couple of other stores, including a used sports equipment store and could find nothing that met our requirements in performance or out of the wallet.

Then, we visited a Nordic Track store in the mall. The sweet innocent looking college girl was working on her pre-med paper because it wasn’t very busy. She showed us the a treadmill that did all we required and it was nice and sturdy. The delivery and assembly charge is free. We bought it. It should be delivered one day next week.

Unless of course, that sweet innocent college girl took our money and ran.

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