I had never been into a western store until I went to Nashville, Tennessee. I guess these are pretty common there, and they do really good business. Most of their business is probably tourist related, but I am sure there are many locals who shop there as well. I come from a rural area, but I had never seen such a place in all of my life. It seemed that there were at least two hundred different types of cowboy hat, and I apparently did not fit in very well.

A group of my friends and I went to Nashville to see someone in a concert. He was not a country singer, but he did do some songs in the genre. We all went to see him, and spent the time before and after the shows walking around and exploring a city I never thought I would visit. There seemed to be a western store everywhere we looked, and many of them were near Broadway. We went into a few of them, and thought we might buy a hat to wear while we were in the city. I guess we wanted to play stupid tourist for a while.

I remember when we walked into the first country western store. We must have looked really out of place because the girl behind the counter seemed to be at a loss for words. I have to say that we are not a glamorous lot, so I don’t know what they confusion must have been. It wasn’t like Madonna just walked into her store. We looked like everyone else we saw, but for some reason our entrance into that western store was something to be noted.

I walked around the store, and tried on quite a few hats, but the price was too much for something I would never wear again. It was hat sticker shock. Though most of us found nothing we wanted in the western store, one of my friends did buy a few things. The rest of us spent a lot of time trying things on and giggling. It was a great store, but I had never seen anything like that in my life. Considering the fact that the store was very close to the Country Music Hall of Fame, you would think the girl in the store would be use to tourists. Perhaps it was her first day. I’ll go with that.