A lesson in salesmanship

I popped into our local Apple dealer (ooh, that sounds dirty) earlier this evening in search of a new pair of earbuds for my iPod. Mine finally gave out about a week ago after almost a year of life. I'd been using my boring old black Sony earbuds since and was, sadly enough, missing the uniformity and recognition that came with the white earbuds. They're everywhere I turn these days and are almost like a badge, a secret symbol indicating that yes, I too am progressive and cool. (I am aware of how sad and school-cliquish this all sounds, but there's been so much written about the iPod as an identity technology... I could go on, but I won't.)

Anyway, back to the Apple shop. I went in fully determined to regain my white-earbud-denotes-iPod-owner status and sure enough, they had earbuds in stock (two general department stores I'd tried in town were all out). So my friendly sales assistant pulls them out from under the counter...

Him: "Look, I know they look cool and everything, but I really don't want to sell you these."
Me: "?!"
Him: "See, they're crap. They break easily and the sound quality is terrible. Plus, they're €39.99."
Me: "Oh...kay..."
Him (reaching behind counter): "See these Sennheisers? They're way better, more reliable and they're only ten euro. I know they're ugly... but you can't go wrong."
Me (still slightly baffled, isn't this an Apple shop?): "Yeah, fair point. I'll take them."

So now I'm the proud-ish owner of a slightly less pretty pair of blue and grey headphones, and more importantly €30 better off. My chances of being mugged for my iPod have probably dropped significantly too - blue and grey headphones must equal rubbish mp3 player, right?

(edit to add that I've just flipped through about ten songs on iPod with new headphones in and ohmygoodness there is no comparison in terms of sound quality. It's like my ears have popped after a long flight and I can hear properly again. Yay Sennheiser.)