Dear Blogger Friends,
If you have ever tried to buy a young ladies formal dress, you will understand my predicament. Modern stores simply do not carry things appropriate for anyone- let alone anyone trying to dress modestly. This is the problem we ran into when trying to find Christmas dresses for Brianna and I.
We'd struck out again one morning, when Mom had to go downtown to the optometrist. Across the street was a second-hand store. Mama suggested that I go in and look for something that might work with the Navy Blue Theme we were coordinating. I agreed to go and we went our separate ways.
As soon as I was through the door, 2 things happened. 1) I thought to myself. Boy, is this a fancy 2nd hand store! and 2) I was almost swallowed whole by an over-friendly and over-obsessed, if not possessed, saleslady.
"Hello, what can I help you with?" Was I willing to lay myself on the line here? This woman seemed very strange, but I figured I was already as lost as I could be.
"Yes, actually. I'm looking for something ina navy blue with or without black velvet-do you have anything like that?" She looked horrified for a moment, then in a scoffing tone replied,"Velvet is not 'in' this season."
I was taken aback. "Oh, how about just navy blue then?" She brightened up again. "We have quite a number of blue items right now." She took me into the little room behind us, picked a dress off the rack and held it against her rather plump self to show it to me.
That dress looked as though it was meant to be worn by an abnormally tall and anorexic pencil. It was a bright blue and had in the center of the bust a diamond shape made of chunky rhinestones in varying shades of blue and white. Wrong color, cut and fit.
My response was: " I need a dark blue, please. And do you have anything a little more modest." The woman gave me a look like I'd just said I'm swum the Pacific ocean in an hour, and said, with an indignant air "It has a wrap." I don't know what her idea of modest was, but we certainly were NOT on the same page here.
Kaitlin, take a deep breath and walk out. I opened my mouth to say what I really thought of the scrap of fabric masquerading as a dress. But by the time I got the first word out, she'd pulled out two more dresses. "These were designed by so-and-so"- they were names I didn't recognize, so I wasn't impressed.
Just when I thought I'd die if I had to look at one more, quite frankly, UGLY dress, I'd scream, Mama came in. I'm rescued- at least I thought I was. She swooped in on Mom and tried to get her to buy a horrible excuse for a dress! She spouted off a long list of foreign sounding names of her designers- to deaf ears. Mom politely thanked her and before she could get in one more word, we were out the door, the saleslady hot on our heels. We stopped for a minute to catch our breath and then started for the real thrift store.
Though we didn't find what we were looking for, we had a good laugh,and left with an experience to share!!
4 comments:
Oh, yes. She was like a piranha! At least she gave us a few laughs:)
That's very funny. Sales people, ladies in particular, can be very annoying sometimes. "It has a WRAP!" Too funny!!!
I actually don't have a formal dress, except my bridesmaid dress I wore to my ILC's wedding last May. It's dark teal, very pretty.
Wow, it sounds like she was very...pushy! :) haha I'm glad you shared that story, it was very funny! Thanks!! :)
It made for a good post, too! Ha! Ha!
I don’t like salespeople helping me shop because they rarely understand what it is that I want. This reminds me of when I was shopping for a swimming suit at age 16. Being larger on top, I prefer plenty of support. I chose a soft cup swimming suit…the saleswoman insisted that it was not the right sort of swimming suit a girl my age should wear; in her mind, that sort of support should be only worn by older women. She kept barging into my dressing room with swimming suits she felt were more appropriate for me. Yes, in the end I purchase what I knew I wanted and needed for my own comfort. ☺
♥Hope
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