“My goodness,” Mrs. Smith exclaimed. “That bowl would cost double the price at home. It’s a good buy.”
Mr. Smith said, “But how will we ever get it home? We can’t lug it all over Europe with us. We would be certain to break it.”
The clerk interrupted, saying, “Pardon me. You don’t have to worry about getting the bowl to your home. We will take care of everything for you—the packing and the shipping. And we will insure it against breakage. We ship hundreds of purchases every year for American visitors.”
Mr. Smith asked, “How much do you charge for that service?”
The clerk shrugged. “There is no charge for our service, sir,” he said. “There will be a small shipping charge which you can pay on receipt of the package, but as for the trouble of packaging and handling the shipment from here, that is merely a part of the service we give our customers.”
“We won’t be back home for another three weeks,” Mrs. Smith said. “What will happen if the bowl arrives before we reach home?”
“You need not worry about that,” the clerk said. “I’ll hold the bowl for several days and then ship it so that it will not arrive until after you have reached home.”
“Well, that seems simple enough,” Mr. Smith said. “As long as you can handle this for us, then we’ll buy it.” He pulled out his wallet and paid for the bowl. Then he carefully wrote out his home address in Lima, Ohio.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” the clerk said, smiling. “The bowl will arrive soon after you get home.”
As the Smiths left the shop, Mrs. Smith said to her husband, “Well, the Italians certainly do make it easy for the Americans to buy something and send it home. I had no idea there would be so little red tape to sending a purchase home.”