| On the rare occasions my mother and I are in the same state, she always wants to take me shopping for clothes. I was traveling last weekend, and I told her I'd be able to see her for 5 or 6 hours on Sunday before going to the airport, what did she want to do? She said she'd like to go to the mall so we could find a good suit for me, and maybe some nice summer clothes with so many things on sale.
My mother enjoys shopping, and all the associated attention to clothes and fashion. I really don't. We don't understand each other very well...though somewhat better than we once did. She worries that I'll spend all my money on books while going around looking shabby and unfashionable because I don't pay proper attention to my appearance. I worry that she spends all her time, money, and energy obsessing over clothes. She'll buy 10 blouses that are identical, as far as I can tell, and spend a week trying them on over and over, (or making me try them on, if it's meant to be for me), examining the stitching quality, checking the color in different light, and then return 9 of them. Or maybe she'll return all 10. Most of the department store clerks who work in Misses sizes know her, but I guess there are different clerks working in the Women's departments. She used to deal with them all the time, when I had to live with her, but now I might not visit for more than a year.
She took me to Lord & Taylor first, where we found a great suit on the clearance rack. It's light gray, so not quite as serious-looking as a darker color, but it looks good on me. And the fit will be perfect as soon as I get the pants hemmed. I was pleasantly surprised at the idea of finishing the shopping so early. I've taught my mother to be polite about the fact that I'm fat and don't intend to lose weight, but sometimes it's a strain for her to keep it up for more than a few hours without an external distraction.
Lord & Taylor doesn't have a simple discount system. They don't put a bunch of clothes on the discount rack and say anybody can buy them for 25% less than the ticket price. They don't even give special cards to regular customers, or customers who agree to be marketed to, and give the discount when somebody with the card buys something from the discount rack. They have a fairly elaborate system of coupons. Sometimes they send them to regular customers and credit card holders by post, sometimes they print them in the newspaper. They're always time-limited, but there is usually something. An attentive customer who always checks her junk mail and reads every page of the paper before going shopping can save 20-50% on every purchase. But one has to keep up, because each coupon is only good for a few days. The last time I was at Lord & Taylor with my mother, I think it was 2005. There was a social cooperation thing going on, with customers passing coupons back and forth as they waited in line. (I approve of communities where strangers help each other, even when I don't like the conditions that form them.) But the store had only been open for a little while, so my mother and I were the only customers in the Women's department. My mother had the wrong coupon with her, the one from the week before. She asked the clerk what the current discount was, then asked to speak to the manager.
She told the manager about the times she had borrowed or lent coupons, which the manager was perfectly well aware of. She told the manager that she had forgotten the appropriate coupon before, and another manager had given her the discount anyhow. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I can't give you the discount without a current coupon." My mother explained, at some length, and with some justice, why this was a stupid policy. But the manager insisted that she could not do anything about it. I suggested, quietly, that we might want to leave the suit and look elsewhere. (The suit was nice, but maybe not worth upsetting my mother so much, plus the waste of money, plus the principle of rewarding L&T for their policy.) She ignored me, pressing the store manager more and more intensely. The other manager had helped her before, why won't you? The manager was clearly trying hard to be polite and professional. She did not say, "I don't know who wanted to risk getting fired or prosecuted for fraud, just to stop you from yelling at her, but I intend to do my job," but somehow my mother went off on a disturbing tangent, like it mattered which manager had broken the rules for her before.
My mother said, "The helpful manager was younger than you, and taller than you, and blonder than you, and thinner than you." Her tone of voice was so nasty I was ashamed of being there at all. I couldn't think of a way to counter the essential meanness of what she was saying, though I managed to interrupt before she said, "and prettier than you." Of course, everybody knows youth, height, slenderness, and fair hair, define beauty and virtue. A person with them must be good, must be helpful. (With everybody else presumably aspiring to the ideals.)
I told my mother, not quietly at all, "You should send a complaint letter to headquarters. It's a bad policy, and the idiots at headquarters who set the policy need to know how much trouble it causes. This lady is only a local manager. National policies aren't her fault." I turned and said, "Sorry" to the manager, but it never makes me feel better when one person insults me and another apologizes. My mother kept grumbling, but it didn't sound so much like a personal attack on the manager anymore. She insisted on buying me the suit, even without the discount...she said I needed a suit, and it being on clearance meant it would be gone quickly.
I can recognize it as a couple of well-tailored pieces of gray cloth that look good on me, that my mother gave me because she wants to take care of me and support my career. I still feel kind of icky about it. |
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