Four days before Christmas last year, a gentleman walked into my shop near closing time. He wore a fine wool suit and a silk tie.

“How are you tonight?” I asked.

“Good, good,” he huffed, his eyes wandering around the store.

“Can I help you find something?”

“Yes, yes. I’m looking for a—I’m not sure what you call it—one of those!” He pointed at a bicycle touring trailer and seemed relieved to have found it. “I’ve been searching for one all week.”

“Really? Where have you looked?” I was curious as to why he hadn’t bothered to check our store first, since we have the only bicycle shop in town. I wheeled the trailer to the counter.

“All over the Internet,” he said. “I’ve been doing all my Christmas shopping that way. This is the first store I’ve set foot in all season.” He seemed proud.

I offered to give him the name of some Web sites where he could buy the device, but he admitted that it was too late, he’d never get it before Christmas. I told him that I knew the going price of the item on the Net, and had he purchased the trailer online he could have saved $7.50 on his $185 purchase. “Of course, the assembly would have taken you about an hour,” I added.

“Longer than that. I don’t own a single wrench.” He spun around on his feet and held up one hand as though he was hoping to sight land. “You know, I’ve never been in this store before tonight.”

As I collapsed the item, what struck me was the man’s genuine sense of unease that he was wasting valuable minutes of his day in a brick-and-mortar store, conversing with a merchant. He could have been at his keyboard, spending money by making even more purchases, more quickly. He tossed his Visa card on the counter, and tapped his thumb against his palm as we waited for the electronic transaction to be completed.

“Must be a lot of people shopping right now, for this to take so long,” he said impatiently. He signed the slip and I handed him his receipt. When I offered to carry his purchase to his car, he froze as though in shock. I’d wondered if I’d accidentally hit his off switch.

“Really?” he asked.

“No problem,” I said. “I might even thank you and tell you to have a good evening,” I teased.

He laughed, and we stepped outside into the clear night. The street lights glowed pale yellow on Third Street. A few cars crept by. I loaded the trailer and waved as the man pulled away.

As I closed up my shop I pictured a world where people had no reason to extend the common courtesies of “thank you” and “you’re welcome,” in which all their transactions were electronic. Such a world wasn’t hard to imagine. I’ve owned my business for 20 years, and, like most merchants, I’ve worried about the impact of Internet and mail-order shopping on my livelihood. Though I have noticed some effect, moments like the one I experienced a few days before Christmas steel my resolve to survive, and point up the need all communities have for businesses such as mine. Yes, shop owners provide a needed service, but just as important, we provide a forum where people from different circles of society rub elbows with each other.

In the early ’70s, an obscure writer from Texas, W. D. Norwood Jr., wrote that progress was a myth. Culture is a seesaw, he contended. Something goes up, something comes down. There is no gain without loss. As Americans communicate faster and faster, exchanging more and more money and words in an electronic world, we have to begin to question the value of all this speed. If we believe that commerce is only about the exchange of money for products in as short a time as possible, then we as a culture have suffered a terrible loss of perspective. The seesaw is tipping.

I think my customer had a pleasant time in my shop. For just one moment, his heart calmed and he laughed. And he found something he wanted. I hope he’ll come back. I can’t promise I’ll always have what he wants, but if I don’t, I’ll help him find it elsewhere. He won’t have wasted his time.

Good retail business is a dialogue, not the punching of a few keys and the exchange of an address and a credit-card number. Those little moments of contact that we brick-and-mortar shops can offer are part of our social contract. Maybe we are meant to slow the world down.

Vala-Haynes lives in Carlton, Ore.