Want. Take. Have.

The last time I bought a leather jacket it was something of an accident. I'd ventured out on a Saturday morning in my now customary outfit of jeans and a tee-shirt and about an hour later I realised that it was February, that the temperature was in fact freezing cold, and that I myself was in fact freezing cold. I decided to remedy the situation by buying more clothing. Which, if nothing else, goes to prove that I am capable of following a logical train of thought. Of course, I ended up buying a nice leather jacket, instead of, say, a simple, and considerably less expensive woolly pullover. Which, if nothing else, goes to prove that I do not necessarily follow practical trains of thought.

Alas, that jacket, much to my chagrin, was later purloined from me, which probably has something to do with why I was jacketless today, when once more I ventured out on a Saturday morning in my customary outfit of jeans and tee-shirt, only to realise about an hour later that it was nearly October, that it was in fact a cold and wet day and that I myself was in fact cold and wet. You can see where this story is going now can't you?

I justify my purchase on the grounds that over the past year or two I've reduced my clothes budget to the barest minimum, that I hadn't yet replaced the stolen jacket and that I was about due for a splurge on something - I can only manage so much fiscal responsibility.

I donned it immediately and proceeded to strut my funky stuff around the streets of London. A short while later, someone stopped me in the street to compliment me on my jacket and to ask where I'd bought it from (strangely the second time in a week someone had stopped me in the street to pay me a compliment - the earlier incident related to a watch my brother gave me as a best mans gift). I instantly felt better about the morning's unexpected expenditure.

Having had my confidence in my fashion sense so bolstered, it occurred to me that if I were in charge of a clothing store, I'd randomly assign various members of my staff to wander the streets looking for people wearing articles from my store, and then to stop them in the street and compliment them on their clothing, and to ask from whence it was obtained. Or would that be ethically wrong?