Beware the Ides of March

Everybody has an opinion about the retraction of the best return-or-exchange policy in the history of commerce by the folks at L.L. Bean. Too many cheaters, is a popular one. Too many skinflints wanting a lifetime boot instead of a multiple-season one, may be another. But in the end, times change, and things that made sense in 1912 (Bean’s founding year) don’t really do so in 2018. Have we all been “deprived of the benefit of the bargain,” a phrase from the class-action lawsuit that has cropped up against Bean in response to the policy change?

Whatever the answer, the superstitious among us can tell you that the “real” reason for such upheaval in our once-sleepy state is that the Ides of March fast approach. March 15 — which is, as anyone knows, the famous murder of Julius Caesar on the floor of the Roman senate in 44 B.C.