[MRM]

A couple of years ago my wife and I were in New York for a three day weekend just before Christmas. We walked down 5th Avenue like all the other tourists. There was a shiny red Ferrari parked right in front of the flagship Polo store. We had heard that Ralph visited the store from time to time so we went in and asked the clerks whether the car was his. The clerks smiled and assured us that Ralph was at his home in Italy and the car was just one of their senior executives’ who happed to be in town for a meeting. We accepted the explanation at the time until we realized that of course, that is what they would say if it was Ralph’s. How many senior executives of any company drive half million dollar cars to meetings in midtown Manhattan? I’d guess a few, but it does seem more likely that with the clerk’s awareness of a car parked outside the store, surprising knowledge of Ralph Lauren’s travel schedule and practiced explanation that they were trained to give that canned response whenever the Ferrari-driving senior executive in the store for a meeting was Ralph. I do hope it was and that Mr. Lauren drives a specimen from his own collection when he needs to get around town.