1. Although it is, admittedly, an expensive store, they have amazing sales that people plan their lives around. Ok, they don't plan their lives around Nordstrom sales, but they don't stray too far from the nearest location when, say, the bi-annual women's shoe sale is coming up.2. Nordstrom avoids at all costs the clutter and absurdity that is All Other Department Stores. 3. Those salespeople...the ones my little brother and I used to fear as youngsters, because, when mom and dad were off drooling about some designer crap we were too young to understand, they'd just walk right up and ask if they "could help us," when clearly, no, NO, we just wanted to be left alone and please not be accosted be well-dressed strangers who wanted us to buy clothes with starched collars or - God-forbid - shiny buttons ...those people are actually, as I've learned in grown-up life, the best people in the world. 4. I could try to be unique and not say it, but the piano player, of course, reminds me that the world can be a gentle and well-mannered place. 5. The other day when I went in to buy some sunglasses (the third such pair of that kind from that store, because I keep doing things like sitting on them and breaking them and can't find any that are even close to being as satisfactory as these) the woman ringing me up, who was stuck behind the counter on a phone call, apologized for having to reach over the counter when she handed me my merchandise, because at Nordstrom they come out from behind the counter to give you your stuff instead of just handing it to you like a some ordinary barbarian, because that's how much they love you.