brave, adventurous men.

yesterday, i brought my jack wolfskin daypack (mine's called harvard, how bad is that?) back into the shop. stitches have started to come loose on the stretchy connection between the backpack and the straps. doubtlessly my schönfelder, satorius and dürig are to blame.
i bought it in june, and of course i didn't have my receipt anymore.

"that small, cute colleague of yours sold it to me", i tell the salesbloke who serves me, as he fills in a refund form so that i'll either get that backpack repaired, or a new one altogether, as i gesture the adorable size of his rather attractive, super friendly colleague, who's sold me many items at that shop.

"cute?", he says "wow, i'll have to tell him that. he'll like that."

i write my mobile number, address and email address on the form, in my usual illegible handwriting. the salesbloke asks me what the numbers are, whether the many 9s in my mobile number are 9s or 7s i tell him, and i leave the shop. without my backpack, but a happy customer nonetheless. i hadn't expected them to do anything without a receipt.

half an hour later, my mobile rings and it's a local number i don't recognise.

"hello?" i answer my phone.

*cough* "hi, i'm calling from jack wolfskin."

it's the cute jack wolfskin salesbloke. regular customer that i am, i recognise his voice pretty immediately. it is not the one who filled in my form, but the cute one who sold me the backpack in the first place.

" i am currently checking the refund form you filled in. i was just checking whether your details are correct. they aren't that legible, you know? you live in u-street and your number is 2 or is that an 11?"

i live 300m away from the shop. this is next door to the shop in some ways. really.

"cool that you're calling." i tell him. "did i write that badly? it's an 11."

"your email adress is ____@, but what's the domain?"

"it's gmail. g-m-a-i-l dot com. google email."

"gmail. by google? how cool. alright.
and your postal code, that's "79098", right?"

"yup, it indeed is.

and then i wait what will happen next, because he can't seriously ask me whether my mobile number, which is much much longer than the postal code or my house number, and was doubtlessly much less legible, is correct. he quite obviously dialled it and it worked.
so what will come next? a coffee offer? something about that "cute" comment? something? anything? i wonder whether he's realised the funny-ness of this situation.

there's silence on the line.

"i'll get back to you once your backpack is finished." he says.

so he's recognised it, yes.

"that's cool. thanks a lot." i reply.

"have a nice day then." he says.

"you too."

and with that, we hang up.

i am immediately annoyed with myself for not being quick enough to say something about the legibility of my mobile number, and whether there was anything else he wanted. duh.

now listen, jack wolfskin bloke:
you could have asked about having coffee. seriously.
i mean, you called without a reason, that was kinda obvious.
it wasn't that much further to go, man. from call to coffee, that should be easy. it's much closer than from a comment made to someone else about you to a phone call.

working at jack wolfskin, shouldn't you be one of those brave, adventurous men?