購買小孩滑雪用的眼鏡 Shopping for Children's Ski Goggles

We are taking the kids skiing over the spring break. I called a friend last week and asked whether she had any old ski pants that her kids had outgrown. I was lucky to outfit both kids with hand-me-down ski pants. I bought ski gloves for them last year at Costco. Since the kids can rent ski equipments and helmets at the ski school, the only things left to buy are ski goggles and socks. I have already asked our family ski expert, my sister, for some advise on how to shop for ski goggles and socks. She gave me some links for me to check them out before we head out to the stores. So we did our homework before we went shopping. What we didn't count on was that the store wouldn't have the merchandise we wanted.

We walked into REI and the whole first floor was filled with camping-related things. We went to the second floor hoping to find some ski stuff, but we didn't see anything related to snow. My husband went up to a REI staff and was told that the store shipped all their ski stuff back to their warehouse, but we can still buy ski stuff on-line. That was unfortunate and a total waste of time. We had to give another store a try. We went to Sports Chalet. They did have snow equipments on display--lots of skis, snow boards, socks, goggles, helmets, etc... We found everything but nothing in children's sizes. So again, we went to speak to a staff. The guy told us that they sold out of children's ski goggles a long time ago, usually right after Christmas. Another waste of an hour. We should have just done the shopping on-line, instead of wasting gas, driving around town looking for ski stuff.

Although we didn't accomplish the task we set out to do today, I did discover something. I had no idea that with a down turn in our economy, sporting goods stores are still doing brisk business.

我們春假要帶小孩子去滑雪。上星期我已經把小孩子的滑雪褲搞定。我打了通電話問朋友看她有沒有她小孩子不能穿的滑雪褲。她的小女兒比我女兒大一歲, 所以我這幾年來一直都很樂意接收她女兒不能穿的衣服。滑雪夾克本來就有了。滑雪用的手套去年在 Costco 就買到了。 只剩下滑雪用的眼鏡及襪子還沒買, 其它滑雪用的東西可以用租的。我妹常帶她的小孩去滑雪, 所以她這方面經驗豐富。我問她小孩滑雪用的眼鏡及襪子要買那一種比較好,她也給了我有少這方面的資訊,所以我去買東西之前是有準備的。結果沒想到今天去了兩家店都沒有在賣小孩子用的滑雪用品。

第一家店REI是連滑雪的用品都沒在賣了。店員說要上REI家的網站才買得到滑雪用品。第二家店 Sports Chalet 只有在賣大人用的滑雪用品。找不到小孩子用的滑雪用品。店員說很多小孩子用的滑雪用品在聖誕節之後不久就賣完了。看樣子得上網路買或上山再買小孩子需要的滑雪眼鏡及襪子。

今天是浪費了不少時間逛運動休閒用品店。雖然沒買到我們想買的東西, 但是我悟到一件事--就是原來在景氣不好的時候, 運動休閒用品店的生意可真好!