The LLBean Experience

Today I accompanied my husband on what was billed as a quick stop at LLBean's to pick up something, I forget what. It turned out he needed a lot of time, preferably alone, to try on jeans and a few other things, and probably I shouldn't have come, an idea I had in fact raised earlier but that's another post entirely. What I want to discuss here is the Bean's experience through the eyes of a local.

I'm proud to say that the "Flagship" store, meaning it's the best and most important of all 54 of their stores, is in our little town in Maine, just 3.2 miles from my front door. Right now it's in the process of major renovations, so the usual entrance with the Bean Boot that everyone stops at and takes a picture with, like it's some sort of national landmark -- crazy but true -- was closed so we had to enter into the Gun Store as I call it, although it's officially "Hunting and Fishing." 

One is immediately assaulted by racks and racks and really, more racks of camouflage clothing, in the usual camo patterns we all know. But a new brand caught my eye and made me gasp. It featured fabric-made leaves, like the ones on trees, sewn onto yet hanging off the clothing, obviously capable of waving in the breeze and looking even more like a real tree to the poor, unsuspecting deer out for a lovely afternoon except it gets murdered, its head stuffed and eventually hung on a wall somewhere.

Beside the clothing area, there are the guns and rifles and assorted paraphernalia that bring swiftly to mind recent shootings in elementary schools and elsewhere, not of deer but of children. This is also a bummer. 

I never get much further at Bean's when I enter through the Gun Store. At least it saves me money.