City Mythology

A shopwalker is not to be confused with a streetwalker. They are entirely different, altogether.

The streetwalker's seemingly purposeless ambling leads to no particular destination. While a shopwalker's leisurely stroll seems equally as purposeless, it is hoped that this exercise will give him a "step-up".

While it is OK to confuse a floorwalker with a shopwalker, confusing a floorwalker with a streetwalker just isn't done. They employ disparate forms of trade.

One is a bit on the off side of the other and both are as different as night is from day. Although the floorwalker can work by night and the streetwalker by day, usually the reverse profits the pockets of each more equitably. Or so I'm told.

In any event, a shopwalker can be a streetwalker, though this is highly unlikely, yet a streetwalker is most often excluded from the ranks of the floorwalkers due to the impropriety of their resumé. The streewalker has difficulty in obtaining credible references, you see.

Which seems a darn shame for the streetwalkers are often a friendly lot, offering an amiable wave and comfortable, if somewhat shopworn, smile while the floorwalker, and the shopwalker too, inevitably stand in the shadow of an elevator shaft, their faces scrunched with distrust, and watch the viator's every move.

That's all very fine and well, I might hear you say, but what does that have to do with me?

If you live in the country, most likely it has nothing whatsoever to do with you unless you do your holiday shopping in the BIG CITY.

If that is the case you should, at least, have a handle on the situation so you know how to spot each of the walkers in turn and know the job description of each in order to avoid some of the confusion large metropolises tend to engender.

By all means, if you have brought your children along to the city witih you, keep a firm grasp on their hands. Do not encourage them to fall in a streetwalker's intersection, nor pocket any stray items on the floorwalker's beat, for though a pocketed shiny bit of fou-fouery might delight the streetwalker it will surely bring the shopwalker's long arm of jurisprudence.

Whew! Now that you are fully informed about the city's streets, shops, floor plans and excercising potential, I can relax and wish you a happy holiday shopping season.
City Mythology © 2005 Chaeli Lee Sullivan