Turtle Pull

Once again, I find myself stuck helping a snobby duo–two women who are dressed like they want to impress, but just look excessive in the act. Can you guess they aren’t pleasant, they’re demanding, and treat you like you’re just there to serve? Very good, then you may proceed.

I help find a turtleneck sweater, after she lists a laundry list of requirements which it passes. Is it wool? Is it cotton? How heavy is it, I don’t want it too heavy. I don’t want it too thin either. Do you have a lot of colors? How much does it cost? Is it expensive? No, yes, light, not too light, lots of colors, on sale, not expensive.

So finally, she tries on the sweater, with her friend giving positive and negative comments–which is always useful, don’t we always want friends like that? “It looks good, not great, just good, do you like it? It looks like it will keep you warm enough, but are you going to be cold wearing it?”

Either way, the woman grabs the neck of the sweater saying it’s too tight. As I watch, she starts to pull on it as hard as she can, pulling, stretching, yanking, tugging. I can hear threads breaking from where I stand. “It’s too tight! It’s so tight, don’t you have a looser one?” I think to myself, “If it’s looser, it isn’t a turtle neck.” I say, “I only have cowl necks,” which I gesture, too. These look like stretched out turtle necks–just like what she’s doing to my new sweater! “No, no, that’s too wide!” So after stretching it out, breaking the threading, she hands it back saying she doesn’t want it, and they leave saying, “It’s just so hard to find what I’m looking for. This place usually has it.”

What, we have what dreams are made of? Once you’re actually rich enough to act like that, you can buy your own tailor.

Customer Types: Capitalist, The Questioner, Tailor-Made

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The Hand of the Mannequin

In recent weeks, I’ve seen many a child standing, waiting for their not-so-doting parents. While the child wanders around, alone, they often stand there and hold the hands of our mannequins. It is a curious sight, invoking a feeling of sadness, distance, and cuteness all mixed with the headless body of a male figure. Yes, I haven’t seen children holding the hands of female mannequins, only males. If I had more time and energy, I’d make a mock-up of some psychology report on the necessity for children to hold hands as a feeling of safety, connection, and social-growth, which attracts them to these pseudo-human figures for these needs when their parental guardians do not accurately provide for them.

It is not always single females whose children go reaching for these hard man-hands, but many of them have been. The oddest thing I notice is some of these children are so insistent on holding onto the hand of the mannequin, they actually pull the arms off. Following a huge cracking sound, as the arm slams into the floor, the child generally starts to scream and cry, running to their parent for safety. I also wonder about the affects of these incidents on the frail stability of the mind of children. One such boy wouldn’t let go of his mother, crying for over twenty-minutes without stop. Of course, during the entire time, she either held him or let him hold her as she continued to look at clothes and try it on–which may have been a precursor to his interest in the mannequin’s hand for security. Of course, the falling arm would definitely show this child the harshness of reality and the world, where you may desire something like safety, but in the end, must provide it for yourself, even if the surrogate hand is cold and strong, it can only take so much pulling and tugging before it too gives up on you.

Still, even with these thoughts, I think it’s cute when a kid holds the hand of a mannequin innocently. Especially when they are waiting for their parents, and they just stand there, holding it. I also anticipate them pulling too hard, ending up with a loose arm floating in the dreams of society.

Customer Type: Piggies

There are too many times customers come up to me and show me a shirt saying, “Do you have another one, this one has make-up on it. I can’t find another one.” And you won’t find another one, because that’s the last one, just because some dumb-ass with too much make-up on their face decided to rub it on the shirt they tried on or some woman with lipstick doesn’t even try to suck in her lips as she takes of a shirt. Even worse, some of these are wide scoop necks, so you know they really put effort struggling and rubbing their face into those shirts. Personally, I would just throw those shirts away when a customer hands it to me–like thanks, this is going to go into the price-kills one day.

You know, that would be a great strategy if you really like a shirt. Just go and try it on, decide you look beautiful in it, and then rub your face on it. Months later, you can return and rummage through the pile, and if you’re lucky, you won’t find a greedier person that realizes all you need to do is wash the damn shirt–instead of complaining to salespeople about the stain–and get a shirt for a fabulous, make-up free price.

That’s just one type of Piggie. The obvious one are people who have to rummage around nicely folded piles of clothes, like a pig in a trough, lifting, looking, throwing down, one-after-another. Some people think they’re giving us something to do, as if we’re bored standing around waiting for you to make a mess. I really wish we, as consumers and customers, could do that elsewhere…

*Imagines* Going into a bank, and walking behind the counter, grabbing their files and throwing it on the ground, rubbing my face all over the dollar bills, then leaving. Going to a businessman’s office, and opening all his fancy books in his bookshelf, leaving sticky notes all over his stuff, and then rubbing my face on his computer screen. I’d love to see a doctor’s face as you dirty his tools, or a construction worker’s face as you kick dirt into a hole he just dug, or a police man’s face as you graffiti on his squad car–oh wait, you can’t do that.

People who make messes don’t even think about the next person that comes along, the next ‘equal’, another customer, who needs to find a size, but because of you, Mr. Piggie, there is just a pile of cloth in shambles. Dropping clothes off hangars and walking away–when I’m not working, I yell at customers who do that at other stores, and I often follow them saying, “So you really aren’t going to pick that up? You’re just going to drop it on the ground and walk away?” You know, there are things called dust and lint on the ground that tend to gather on clothes left idly on the floor. Do other people really need to pay for your lack of respect, responsibility, and a furthering of the lack of evolutionary movement towards equality and understanding in society? One day, it will be a requirement to think about other people when they do things that affect the lives of others, it’s called morals. Oh never mind, we already have that.

Customer Type: Piggies