Fast forward to yesterday when I realized just how bad consumerism has gotten. Businesses want your money, bottom line. They dont care about you, they certainly dont care about your finances or bills. They are hoping you are dumb enough to have credit and use it frivolously. If you dont...well, theyre the first ones to offer you a special card that will help you pay for the things you dont really need. Case in point: Donia and I visited the mall yesterday. We had an errand to run there, one single transaction that would have taken 5 minutes. Neither of us could stand the thought of sitting in 40 minutes of traffic just to reach our destination, walk in, and walk out minutes later. We decided to walk around the Northgate Mall a bit and browse for summer clothes. We passed many stores before we came upon the first one that caught our eye-Victoria's Secret. Now, I know this sounds R-rated, but really, all Donia does is rave about their bras. She uses the word "quality" a lot when referring to them, so I know she means business. She wants things to last until the end of time. She wants the world to be coming to an end and still be able to use the toaster she bought 80 years prior and turn on the TV thats older than dirt. She believes in forever...with allll things. Im not much of a Victoria's Secret girl, Im fine with whatever I find wherever. All my girl friends have tried to make me feel bad or incompetent because of this. How could you not buy all of your undergarments from VS!!?? Its a sin! I always thought, 'How is it that this Victoria has monopolized everyone's boobs'? How did this happen that she owns everyones privates and only losers dont go there to outfit their naked bodies? Whoever she is, shes smart I tell ya, cuz every girl past the age of 13 has it ingrained in their heads that their breasts and asses will suffer terrible deformities, rashes and look awfully disfigured if they are not fitted into a super-expensive garment from VS. Why is this? Cuz their moms think the same twisted thing...
We enter VS and Donia immediately takes me to the supportive, quality bras. Black. White. Tan. This is what supportive looks like. Ok, fine, I think. My bras are old and I could use a new one or two. She immediately finds the sale (thats my girl!) that was posted on a sign out front. Jesus, depending on how big your girls are, you could pay up to 70 bucks for one of these suckers! She finds the 2 for $40 rack (no pun intended) and tells me "These are good". Ok, oh sacred guru of bras, lets get crackin. I find my size (which I will not disclose, thank you very much) and we head to the dressing room. Now comes the scariest part of all...the...salesgirl! The evil evil salesgirl thats so bubbly and happy to be alive in this glittery pink store that she almost explodes! She asks us if we found everyhting, if we had trouble, if we need help, if we are satisfied, if we wanna try them on, if we like them, and if theres anything else she can do just BUZZ her from the room and she'll fetch other sizes! She should have asked if well needed therapy after this session cuz I know I will. I now have PTSD from the horrific experience.
Jesus, I just entered high class shit here. I thought only Oprah was treated like this but no, the little people get it too. Only at VS, of course.
We answer "yes" to the trying on question, and she attempts to open ONE dressing room door. Does she thinks were friends that cant possibly want to not model our bras for each other, to want to critique each and every inch of them, to only know if we should buy them through the advice of the other? We werent holding hands or anything, so she wouldnt know we were together. Who knows what it was she was thinking, but I had to intervene. "Um, excuse me, ma'am. Hi, um, you see, as much as we love each other and have no secrets between us, etc.etc., we are indeed like all other women and would like to try our bras on ALONE. In different dressing rooms. Yeah, thanks, youre great. Oh, nope, thanks, Im fine, I can apply a bra to myself without hurting myself or screwing it up. Yep, Im good like that. What? Buzz? Yeah, sure, Ill buzz you..." Youre goddamn right I didnt buzz her! Fuck that, I can find new sizes. I dont need to stand there topless while she flits about the store looking for the perfect bra for me. Its just not right. Im a big girl and I can put my shirt on and leave the room and find the bra and return to the room and try it on and you know what? Ill not even think twice about those precious moments I made my feet take 50 steps to do it. Ill live the life of the less priveledged if this is what it entails.
Through my door I hear Donia emerge from her room and she's bombarded. "Howd they feel/look/snap/hold? Do you like/love/want/need to have it? Can I get you matching panties/underwear/thongs/robes/perfume/leggings? No? So just the bra? And it fit? Wow". I come out seconds later and before I can be swarmed by the Fairy Bra-girl, I grab Donia and we have a private pow-wow (which Im sure someone had to be taping and playing back somewhere at a faraway VS headquarters). I ask her if it was weird here and here and did it stick out a bit here and yes oh good cuz it did on me...and then here she comes. Salesgirl. Evil in the form of a tanned Prom-Queen wannabe.
Sometimes in life we make mistakes. Some are small; others, well, they can be quite devastating, leaving our life and everything we knew and loved in shambles. My mistake: telling her of my bra concerns. She immediatley looks at me like I just lost a loved one. Such despair and disappointment, such deep sympathy for what Im going through. She offers to get me a new size. New size, mind you, this is what she says. Well, shes a fucking lying fairy salesgirl with the remorse of serial killer and the heart of Satan. I put all of my trust in this girl and what does she do? She reaches into my chest and pulls my heart right thru it...past the boobs she claims to live to help! She stomps it on the floor and then spits on it, all the while glittering and smelling so lovely of the VS scent of the month. This sales girl tricked me, and I will never forgive her, as long as I live. As long as my boobs stay North and can be tamed by a normal everyday store-bought bra, I will hold this grudge. Her indiscretion: she came back with not the bra that I wanted, but a different bra that she thought would suit me better! As if she knows me! As if she knows my struggles in life! As if she took on my soul at that moment and knew what was best for my chest! Pssshhh. You dont know me or my body parts, little girl. You bring me back a hot pink soft fluffy piece of crap like this!? Shove it up your VS-clad ass!
I pretend to try the bras on, but I now know 3 things: 1. I dont like them and theyre different than the others, 2. She claimed they were "better" cuz they werent on sale like my others, and 3. shes a cheating whore.
I emerge from the room when I hear her go fetch a bra for another girl. I am worn and tired, and I figure this is my only chance to get away unscathed. I peek around the corner, all super-hero spy sleuth-style, and I make a break for the original display of 2 for $40 bras. I can just get my size back and go. 1..2..3...RUN!!!! I am almost there when, fuck! There she is! And she has my original bras in hand! I have the fleeting thought of knocking her out cold with the torso of an underwear manequin and making my way to the register quickly, but I decide against it. Too risky. Ive gotta keep my head about me now. I cant let her win. Where is my sidekick!!!??? Oh God, Donia is gone, Im on my own, Im hungry and scared and praying I make it to tomorrow.
She turns swiftly and sees me out of my designated changing station. "How. were. they?" I hear it as if the world were in slow motion. I try to think fast, Im afraid of her, of what Ill say and how shell reprimand me and send me back to the dressing unit and make me strip and wear the pink bra and scream at me that I do want it and that Im a pussy and that no one'll ever want me if I dont wear it and like it! I answer skittishly, "Um, well, I, um, I guess theyre ok but I, uhhh, I like the first ones I had after all." She stares into my soul, full of disappointment. She wants to slap me and throw the bras at my face, but I can tell shes decided to be more professioanl than that. She sighs and says, "well, ok", and gently flops the bras into my hand. Shes defeated. But really, so am I...
I take them and know my life has been spared this day. I look feverishly around all the different VS rooms for Donia, when I finally see her staring blankly from a designer chair, her pink bag in hand. She is weathered, but not worn. She's made it farther than I have, and I envy her at this moment. She gets up and approaches me, seeing the worry and fright on my face. I tell her "Move, move, dont look back. Just keep walking". I get to the register and have to stand there for 7 minutes waiting. Why is this? Well, first off, all the sales girls are out fetching bras for topless and helpless customers, so only one cashier is available. Secondly, do you know how else they attempt to pamper you? Well, they start by killing 1000s of trees and dying the paper they get from them pink. They then wrap each and every indiviaual undergarment you buy in this paper. As if putting them in a bag touching each other will ruin their reputations, or soil their beauty. Of course, just because this is the shopping day from Hell, the girl in front of me must have gotten a gift card, cuz she bought more undergarments than a person could wear in a lifetime. Do I wanna have kids and fund their college educations? Nah, Im gonna spend that fortune on lingerie. Dumb, dumb girl. While Im sandwiched in between two crystal cases of gloss and perfume and oil and lotion and polish and rouge, I see the salesgirl I offended with my denial of her bra suggestions. She flashes me an evil grin, as if to say, "You think youve won, but I always win, bitch" As if she has the ability to curse my boobs and any other bra that ever touches them. And you know what, Im convinced she just may...
I finally get called over by the girl whose only dream in life is to cash me out and then pose for the VS catalog herself. Thats it. She'll do this and die happy. She is nice as I put my bras up there on the counter, but then, something changes. Like a chameleon she goes from fake tanned to EVEN DARKER fake tanned, and evil. She asks me how Im gonna pay. Ruh-roh, I smell trouble! She asks if Ill be using my VS credit card. As I start to say No....she cuts me off and asks if Id like to. No? Oh, silly her, is it cuz I dont have one? Yes, well, if you sign up you get coupons and discounts and free puppies and happiness and cruises to the Bahamas and everlasting true love and emails telling you about upcoming sales. All the while Im trying to interrupt her and say No Thank You, like a polite consumer, more than I ever got from people, but shes relentless. She doesnt shut up until shes told me everything this little wonder-card can do. I am finally able to squeeze in a 'no thanks' but it means nothing as I hear it leaving my mouth. She knows Im not confident. She knows I have no spine, no support behind my decision. She thinks she can crack me, and she almost can, but just then something rises up inside me and I grab her by her blond weave and pull her fake-lashed eyes close to mine and say "Put the fucking bras in the pretty pink bag, bitch. No! Dont wrap them! Throw them carelessly in! Theyre not newborns, theyre bras! Ok now, let me swipe my plain old BANK CARD and let me on my way!" She is visibly shaken, and I am visibly pleased.
On our way out the lovely sales manager is standing near the exit and flashes us a huge VS smile and says "Have a good day!" These empty words fall upon our ears and we smile back. "You too" we reply, all the while knowing we have single handedly escaped the store with half priced bras, and the blood of once shiny happy sales girls on our hands...
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