The Bose Experience

Last weekend I was "down at the lake". Whenever you're "down at the lake" with a woman, shopping at some point will occur. The number of outlet malls, strip malls, and just plain old malls is too high to count. It’s like liquid crack for the female types. You dangle this many shopping opportunities in front of a woman and they can't resist.

During one of these outings, I came across "The Bose Store". Being an electronics junkie, I couldn't resist. As soon as I entered the store I immediately saw the noise canceling headphones display. I've always wanted a pair for work, and keep reading that Bose has the best ones available. I was dying to try them out.

As soon as I'm about to start the demo, the sales guy walks over to me and asks if I need any help. I just told him I was really interested in the headphones, and he quickly pointed me to another "much better" demo to try out. Ok. I walked over to it, put the head phones on and pressed the "start" button.

Immediately all the background noises of the store disappeared and all I could hear was a Dave Mathews Band concert. I was amazed. A few minutes into the concert I noticed my girlfriend, and the rest of the people in the store, looking at me as if my hair was on fire. What's going on, I wondered. Then the demo told me to lift the head phones off one ear. I did, and was instantly aware of the reason everyone was staring at me. The demo was simulating airplane noise in the store. There was a very loud rumbling going on. Very loud. With the headphones on, there was zero rumbling. With the headphones off, it sounded as if a jet was landing in the parking lot outside.

Being someone who likes to keep a "low profile", this kind of attention is unwanted. I quickly put the headphones down and started looking for the stop button. There wasn't one. I was forced to walk away. The demo continued on for the next 10 minutes, rumbling and all.

If only I had $350, I would have walked out of that store with a pair of those headphones.