Clareified

Another one of the patented Dawn Summers/Karol Sheinin conversations goes like this:
One: See, here’s the thing…
Other: Go ahead. Tell me. What’s the thing?

This conversation is usually predicated by the one doing or saying something completely inane…like when I said I’d be going to work in the morning and at 3 p.m. I’m still making phone calls from my house phone while wearing pajamas and eating Apple Jacks out of the box in my bed. What happened to going to work, Karol would ask. “See, here’s the thing…” I would answer.

I tell this story because really, things would be so much easier for me if everyone understood that when I say “here’s the thing,” I know that what I have just said is utterly ridiculous, but somehow this is where I find myself and you really just need to bear with me and stop staring at me with the dead eyes while your hand searches under the counter for the button to push the silent alarm.

Take today for instance.

I had an early morning meeting (for someone used to going to sleep at 6 a.m., 11:30 is early morning) with my headhunter. He had set up a job interview for me tomorrow evening and wanted to prep me beforehand.

I got to the office, changed into my shoes. Was all excited that they both fit me again, picked up my files and whatnot and hopped in a cab to the meeting.
I walked into the building lobby ended up shanghaied into a conversation with a way too chatty security guard and by the time I made it up to the 23rd floor, I realized that while my feet fit into the normal shoes…they definitely did not like being in the normal shoes.
Leeemon.

After the meeting, I decided that instead of going back to the office, I should just go to the store to buy a suit for my interview, since I evidently lost just enough weight during my convalescence to no longer fit into the suits I wore a couple of months ago, but not enough weight to fit into the suits I wore a couple of years ago.
Leeeeeemon.

My favorite place in New York to shop for suits is Lord & Taylor. It’s a posh department store on fifth avenue, with the requisitely decorated windows for holiday tourists. It’s a holdover from my law school days when I started making real money and decided I was going to shop where the rich people shop. I used to get dressed up and get my nails done, just to go shopping and not get hasseled by the man. Silly. I mean, I was still young and black (with my hat real low) and I still got hasseled. Whatever. I loved walking out of there with the red and white Lord & Taylor bag filled with name brand suits.

So, I hailed a cab and said “Lord &Taylor” please. (Seriously, it’s one of those places that people just know.) A doorman opened the cab door for me and I went inside. My limping was sadly so pronounced that “dragging my numb leg behind my body” is probably a more apt description.

I pushed the button up to the “women’s department” and stepped out onto the floor. I made a beeline for the suits and grabbed a couple in what I assumed was my size. I went into the dressing room and kicked off my shoes before trying on the clothes. They were all too big. Ap-cray.

I quickly put back on my street clothes and went out to the floor to get the same suits in a size smaller.

(See, right now you think I’m only telling this story so that I could write that sentence right there. You would be wrong. Not entirely wrong, but wrong enough. )

A saleslady hovered near my dressing room door. “Can I take these?”
“Not yet, I want to try these on first.”
She disappeared.
These suits fit like gangbusters, but with that ever slight hint of cleavage that seems inappropriate at all times, but certainly for a job interview. So, I Clark Kented back into street clothes and hobbled out to find a mockneck to wear inside.
The saleslady reappeared again, as if from the ether.
“Do you need help?”
“Uh…no, I’m good.”
I grabbed a shirt and another suit, just because I felt she was watching me so closely, I wanted to make it harder for her to keep track of all the items the one legged black chick was squirrelling away in the dressing room.

I tried on everything one more time and settled on two suits by the Klein siblings. A black Ann and a Navy Calvin.

I left the too big for me suits behind.

The saleslady swooped in to grab the suits and shirt in my hand.

“You don’t want these, right?”
“No, those are the ones I want…the ones I didn’t want, I left behind in the dressing room.”
Crumpled in a ball on the floor.
(Just kidding. I would never…)
I limped to the counter and realized that since this trip to Lord & Taylor had been all spontaneous like, I didn’t have any…oh, how shall I put this…money or credit cards with me.
Yeah, I showed up to a swanky department store spent twenty minutes trying on suits that cost hundreds of dollars and I had no money, save the $15 for Scrabble club later tonight.
Okay, so here’s the thing, I say flashing my purhty purhty smile at the saleslady…”I left my wallet at the office, but I’m pretty sure I have a Lord & Taylor credit card account…can I charge these to that?”
She eyes me skeptically.
“When’s the last time you used it?”
“Um…oh…ten years ago.”
“Sorry, you have to open a new account.”
“Okay, how do I do that?”
“We need a state ID and a credit card.”
Yeeaahhh…leeeemmooon.
“See…I left my wallet at the office, so I don’t have any credit cards on me,” I am now frantically rifling through my coat pockets…I find my job ID, a Hilton player’s card and…ooh…jackpot, my driver’s license (though, heaven knows why that’s just randomly in my pocket)!
“I have my license, can I open an account with my license.”
“Yes and a credit card.”
Now, I always say that everything always works out for Karol. And they do. But, in her defense, I will say that she is also willing to -with a straight face-make demands that would make me nauseated and cover my face with shame.
For instance, standing in a store with merchandise and no way to pay for them and then saying to the cashier who, quite reasonably, will not give them to you “I would like to speak to a manager,” is something Karol and a desperate, desperate Dawn Summers would do.
She calls him over.
I plaster on that sweet, sweet smile again.
I explain about the wallet and the fact that it’s zero degrees outside and I would really, really not like to have to come back out in this weather. Plus, if I come back, it’ll be with my Amex and I won’t use the Lord & Taylor card. And I might just go to the Dress Barn across the street from my office and not come back at all.
“Please Sir, don’t make me have to go to Dress Barn.”
He smiled and said he’d see what he could do.
Success!
He called the credit people and they said that since I had an account before, he didn’t need another credit card from me. My license was enough to open a new account. AND since I was buying all this stuff with a new Lord &Taylor card, I would be eligible for the 20% new card discount.
Plus, everything was on a crazy 40% sale, so I got both suits and the shirt, for less than one of the suits costs.
I love America.

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.