Ex-squeeze me?!
Lord and Taylor was having a sale, in-store and online. Wanting a new down coat for the whenever-it–gets-here winter and preferring to shop online, I poked around their website, offer code in hand, and found something nifty; an olive-colored, Michael by Michael Kors down coat with a snappy faux fur hood (thank you, Michael, I always prefer faux fur). Being a pretty solid size 16, I checked the sizing chart and found that XL size of the coat fit a size 16-18. I purchased it and got a sizeable discount.
Always wanting as much information about things as possible, I wanted to go to the Lord and Taylor store on Fifith Avenue and see if they had said coat in size XL, so I could try it on and know if it was a keeper. I went to the store after work and found the excat same coat I I had just bought online in XL. I brought it over to the nearest mirror, took off my jacket and slipped it on; happily, I was able to zip up the zipper. The coat was a wee bit snug, but not by much (I tend to wear thin layers in the winter instead of bulky sweaters anyway). I looked in the mirror and felt good about what I saw.
Then I hear a woman’s voice out of nowhere say,” You know, they have larger sizes downstairs.” I turned a saw a woman in her sixties — not a Lord and Taylor worker — with coiffed, dyed red hair and a tad too much makeup looking at me with her hands folded. I knitted my brow and said, ” This coat fits me fine, I just bought it online.”
She scrunched up her face as if I just farted. “Well,” she said huffily, “you should either return it or go on a strict diet!” She then turned with her nose in the air and marched away.
I was, as they say in England, gobsmacked. What nerve! Did she really have nothing better to do than insult me, a total stranger? Do mean girls never evolve, even when they becom AARP eligible? I looked at myself in the mirror again. “This looks fine!” I said. I asked a young woman working in the department for her opinion. “It looks like it fits you,” she said. I was still flummoxed. If I was that nasty woman I wouldn’t have said anything — it’s called minding your own business and it’s one of the things that keeps civilization going. I have complimented people in stores once in a while, that’s a nice thing to do. I shook my head, hung up the coat and left the store. “Perhaps that’s why I prefer to shop online,” I said to myself.
The coat arrived a few days later and it fit just fine. I have worn it on several occasions in public without any comment.
Robin Eisgrau
