Here's the grownup version of "Let's Pretend": If money was no object, which kind of Oriental rug would you buy?

E. and I like to play this game, although for different reasons (he was raised to think an Oriental rug is required, while I was raised to think it is something other people own).

We stopped in a store in New York and rug-watched for a while last weekend. I watched an officious-looking guy in a suit supervise as dozens of rugs were rolled back, one on top of another, for some indecisive-looking people. When the group went away, an older salesman, nattily dressed in a navy blazer and a turban, stepped over to us. "Don't listen to that idiot," he told us, quietly. "He doesn't know what he's talking about."

Since we weren't actually in the market to buy anything and we hadn't been listening to anyone anyway, this was easy enough. He sized us up quickly and said sternly to E.: "She is trying to improve your environment. You listen to her." (Couldn't argue there.)

Later he caught up with us again in another room and started explaining to us about the intricate weave of one of the rugs. "Don't walk around the rugs here," he told us. "They are here to be walked on. You should always walk on a rug before you buy it."

This somehow led to a discussion of the various prejudices he has endured recently because he wears a turban and many people, even in New York, don't know what a Sikh is. "They think I am Taliban," he said. "In March, I am retiring. I am going home to India. I have been disgraced here."

We felt guilty, predictably, even though we weren't to blame, but in the back of my mind I thought it was a strange kind of sales pitch. He didn't seem too put out that we weren't buying anything, though, and throughout the whole rant he never lost his twinkle.

When he finally moved along, we skittered toward the door, only to be pulled back by the salesman one more time. He gave us a photocopy of an article in a rug industry publication that described him a a Persian rug expert, as if we had called it into question. And when he finally let go of us he patted E.'s arm with both hands, as if in a vague kind of benediction.

As I left the store I was careful to walk on all the rugs.