Christmas shopping in Amsterdam

A man enters the Hajenius tobacconist, on the Rokin, between the Dam and Mint Square.

To his surprise he finds two young (30ish) ladies of astonishing beauty behind the counter. Both dressed very well, one very elegant, in black dress with a high neck line, the other very colourful, with low-cut blouse, showing a lot of cleavage, and about 50% of her extraordinary alabaster bosom. Her face made up, looking kind of posh-sluttish, with lips painted bright red. Amazing instance of oxymoronic experience, with a hilarious effect. After all, Hajenius is the oldest cigar maker and dealer in the Netherlands; the shop itself about 200 years old, unchanged, and usually its attendants are middle-aged gentlemen dressed in tasteful suits and ties.

The man immediately went into slow-down action mode. He was being served by the elegant girl in black dress, but couldn’t keep his eyes off the other one. This suitably coincided with the fact that the wall behind the counter displayed packets that looked like they contained cigarettes way over to the right, which forced him to look to the right, to peruse that part of the wall, but which allowed him really to have his eye balls fixated on the bosom display.

After all, what he was after were not cigars, but real tobacco cigarettes, which he hoped were obtainable at this centre of tobacco excellence. So he asked the girl in the black dress if they sold these, in rather long-winded fashion. But no, they did not sell cigarettes, only cigars. But what about those small boxes that looked like they might contain cigarettes? but no, they were tiny cigars. So, oh, alright, I think I will try one of those then. Which would you recommend?

In the meantime, the alabaster bosom is getting out several king size cigars for another, young male, customer, who’s noticeably suffering from similar symptoms, ie. taking a long time to formulate what he wants. As it happens, it is a large format cigar as a present for his dad or some such purpose. She gets a few out and puts them on the counter, and the young man hesitantly asks how you actually ‘use’ them, as she starts carefully taking them out of their tubes, bending deep over the counter, outing her bosoms even more.

At that point the man chuckles loudly, and starts getting Monty Pythonesque visions. His chuckle sets off all four of them chuckling, and he wonders what the girls are actually thinking. Like, we were put here with the sole purpose of selling something to every person setting foot in the shop, 99% of customers being male, and irresistably attracted to our counter where we, gorgeous girls, do the selling?

After completing his purchase, in the slowest possible fashion, the man wanders over to a display with traditional Ronson lighters, asking about the cost of those nowadays, and how he used to have one, but lost it etc. etc. thus allowing him a little longer shop time. Then, when it becomes clear he’s not about to buy one, his time is up, and he concludes he’s made the best of a special moment, and leaves the shop, his mood somewhat improved.