Why Did You Marry Her?

There was a couple with beautiful children. The man had a Mediterranean look to him, his wife was white, short, and round. I’d explain her in more elegant detail, but she wasn’t that nice, nor was her husband.

She started with a few outfits, and her daughter kept taking out bad stuff and bringing in new stuff. Every time the wife would come out of the fitting room, her husband would look at her with disappointment and shake his head. “No, not flattering. Too long. Look how it’s cut at your waist. No, that won’t work. ” She came out several times with totally different looks and outfits, always with a stern, “No.” I mean, her basic outfit she wore when she came in wasn’t even that great–just a t-shirt and jeans that didn’t fit correctly. But, wow, what a husband! Somehow he let her leave the house dressed like that.

If everything looks bad on her, and if nothing makes her look cute or fit right, basically you’re saying she looks ugly to you or you’re implying she’s hopelessly ugly in all the different looks she tries. So why did you marry her? I just stood there, saying nothing, wondering if they wanted cute kids? Because he definitely got that, he could just divorce his tragically style-less wife who can’t look hot even if she tried. Seriously, everything she wore, he just shook his head and criticized it. She looked far better in those outfits than the one she walked in with, truth be told. I thought someone you marry is someone who looks beautiful to you, no matter what. I thought he’d help her out, find something sexy for her, but he was full-on, flat-out, “No, that won’t work either.” Just standing with his arms crossed, looking bored. Of course she got nothing, since none of the looks she tried could pass his inspection.

Still, I kept asking myself, “Why did you marry her?”

Customer Types: Guessing Game, Lowered Expectations

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Eeny, Meeny, Miny, MARKDOWN!

Eeny, meeny, miny, markdown,
Make me have a big, fat frown.
I fold for you a dunce’s crown,
Eeny, meeny, miny, markdown!

I always find myself in the sale section helping customers, because so many of them float there and get stuck, like branches during a flood. We already know about the cool people with the amazing ability to find the only item left NOT in their size, so they need to ask everyone if we have just one more, somewhere, buried, waiting for them like a cheap pirate looking for nonexistent treasure while holding a torn map be bought for a pence, with a branch for a leg because he can’t afford a good peg-leg from a stool.

This time, my lovable pirate is a one wearing two eye-patches. So I ask if they are doing okay, and they shove a sweater at me, saying, “Why is this price higher than the others? How much is it?” And I look at a wall with at least five of the same sweater, in the same color, and same size–all marked cheaper. I tell them the price–from those sweaters. And I’m thinking, “Why do you want the one that’s not marked correctly? What makes this one so special? Why do you need to waste your life and another person’s life for this? And is it not common sense that this one is marked wrong?” Why in the world do you have to find the only one marked wrong, do you think you’re doing your job for us?

So they have an argument with me, obviously one-sided, because I know it’s not marked right. Then I get blamed because it’s marked wrong. It is my utter joy being the middle-man between people who just have to find the one mis-marked item and thus desire it with a grand passion, and the co-worker who decided to miss that item while fumbling through this mess of sale, which I should remind you is generally a mess because of these self-same customer rummaging through sale like a tossed salad. It’s called the Circle of Retail Life in the Sale section.

So we go to the register and scan the item–lo and behold, wait for it, wow, it is the lower price like all the other sweaters! Isn’t that amazing? Totally mind-shattering, world-altering experience. And of course, they want that sweater. (Because it is better than the other sweaters which were marked correctly, you know that, right? They are drawn to it like flies to an electric shocker just waiting for their death to come.) As they try to shove the sweater at me and pull out their credit card, I point at the long line behind them saying, “You have to wait in line first,” then I wade my way back into the river to find another branch, lost and stuck because they have to find the one unique item that isn’t like the others, because they want to complicate the world by not opening their eyes. Because, you know, the mis-marked one is so much better than the others.

Eeny, meeny, miny, markdown,
It’s not I that make you a clown.
Now go wear your deal around town,
Eeny, meeny, miny, markdown!

Customer Types: Agreeing to Disagree, The Blind, Don’t Kill the Messenger, Micromanagement, Piggies

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