Coffee Table Declarations
Monday, September 20, 2004
I've determined that I can never get another job. As I may have mentioned, my company is located in the same building as the corporate headquarters of a very high end clothing line. Every few months an unadvertised sale takes place where you can purchase sweaters for $10, pants for $7, shirts for $5, and if any item says "sample" on it anywhere, even tucked away on the inside, it only costs $3.
I took Friday of last week off from work and on Friday a sale was announced. By announced, I mean whispered through the door by the receptionist from the office upstairs. Thankfully I have sweet, thoughtful coworkers who know how important these sales are to me. So important in fact, that I felt an excitement like I haven't felt since childhood Christmas Eves. My wonderful coworker called me at home at 9:30 Friday morning and said that she knew I would never forgive them if they didn't tell me. She was right.
From the moment I found out it was all I could think about. Visions of clothing danced through my head. I invited my new roommate along since last time I brought my old roommate and after all, there has to be some perks to living with me. I briefed her on the strategy: we leave the apartment no later than 7 am. (The sales start at 8 but there is always a line out the door.) We must dress in shorts and tank tops, despite the chilly rain forecast, because once we are there it will be a thousand degrees. We should wear decent undergarments as we will be tearing off our clothes to try things on and don't want to offend anyone. We need to bring trashbags. No, not "tall kitchen bags", I mean literal trashbags, the bigger the better. And last, but not least, carry cash - as much as possible - in your pocket, just in case.
My alarm went off at 6:30 am and on a rainy Saturday that was a little painful. However I had been tossing and turning all night with dreams of oversleeping and missing the sale, so I was more than happy to get up at the inhuman hour. Out the window it was still dark thanks to the big, gray rainclouds. It looked altogether unwelcoming. Still, I threw on shorts, a tank top, a sweatshirt, and grabbed my previous day's ATM withdrawal of a wad of cash, and shoved it into my pocket. I exited my bedroom to find my roommate dressed and ready to go. We ran out into the rain and we were on our way.
Having my office right there is convenient because we can leave everything there and have our hands free for clothes grabbing. We got in line at the bottom of the stairs (a prime spot considering the line would grow twice as long before the sale began) and met up with some of my coworkers. As we passed the time chatting I have to confess to a feeling of wishing there were no one else there (except perhaps my small group of coworkers) because I didn't want anyone else to get my destined clothing.
When the doors opened there was a literal stampede up the stairs and into the high end clothing headquarters corporate office where cartons and cartons of clothes lines the halls and frenzied women were already tearing through in an effort to find the best things. I always try to find cartons that no one is looking through because I hate when I'm looking through one and someone comes and looks through the same one. However, it is every woman for herself and I have to urge myself toward aggression as I squeeze my arms through a solid wall of bodies and into cartons, grabbing what I can. The idea is to put anything you might want into your trashbag and decide on it later. I heard today that someone saw women dumping whole cartons into their bags to be sorted through later, but I can't quite fathom such uncivilized behavior. We are ladies not barbarians for goodness sakes.
After the initial rush my coworkers and I gathered in a corner and sat down in a circle to sort. I had managed to lose my roommate in the confusion and I could only hope she had survived the chaos unscathed. After I sorted my items into piles of yes and no, I started to try on the yesses. Unfortunately there were no mirrors so I basically had to go by the majority vote. At the end of the process I had a huge pile of clothes that I liked and had to sort again into definates and maybes. At some point during this endeavor, my roommate showed up and gave me several pairs of pants that didn't fit her. I have such a hard time finding pants out in the real world because they are always too long. However the pants at these sales always seem to fit me perfect - which is great considering they only come in one size and I happen to be that size.
All in all I walked away with 9 pairs of pants (including 3 pairs of jeans), a skirt, a dress, 4 sweaters and long sleeved shirts, and 10 short sleeved shirts and tank tops. All this for $135. When I got home and looked over the fruits of my labors, I found two price tags with suggested retail amounts - a shirt for $48 and a sweater for $118. In two items the clothes had virtually paid for themselves. So now perhaps you can understand why like it or not, I'll be working here until the end of time. They should mention these sales in the benefits package when they interview job candidates.
I took Friday of last week off from work and on Friday a sale was announced. By announced, I mean whispered through the door by the receptionist from the office upstairs. Thankfully I have sweet, thoughtful coworkers who know how important these sales are to me. So important in fact, that I felt an excitement like I haven't felt since childhood Christmas Eves. My wonderful coworker called me at home at 9:30 Friday morning and said that she knew I would never forgive them if they didn't tell me. She was right.
From the moment I found out it was all I could think about. Visions of clothing danced through my head. I invited my new roommate along since last time I brought my old roommate and after all, there has to be some perks to living with me. I briefed her on the strategy: we leave the apartment no later than 7 am. (The sales start at 8 but there is always a line out the door.) We must dress in shorts and tank tops, despite the chilly rain forecast, because once we are there it will be a thousand degrees. We should wear decent undergarments as we will be tearing off our clothes to try things on and don't want to offend anyone. We need to bring trashbags. No, not "tall kitchen bags", I mean literal trashbags, the bigger the better. And last, but not least, carry cash - as much as possible - in your pocket, just in case.
My alarm went off at 6:30 am and on a rainy Saturday that was a little painful. However I had been tossing and turning all night with dreams of oversleeping and missing the sale, so I was more than happy to get up at the inhuman hour. Out the window it was still dark thanks to the big, gray rainclouds. It looked altogether unwelcoming. Still, I threw on shorts, a tank top, a sweatshirt, and grabbed my previous day's ATM withdrawal of a wad of cash, and shoved it into my pocket. I exited my bedroom to find my roommate dressed and ready to go. We ran out into the rain and we were on our way.
Having my office right there is convenient because we can leave everything there and have our hands free for clothes grabbing. We got in line at the bottom of the stairs (a prime spot considering the line would grow twice as long before the sale began) and met up with some of my coworkers. As we passed the time chatting I have to confess to a feeling of wishing there were no one else there (except perhaps my small group of coworkers) because I didn't want anyone else to get my destined clothing.
When the doors opened there was a literal stampede up the stairs and into the high end clothing headquarters corporate office where cartons and cartons of clothes lines the halls and frenzied women were already tearing through in an effort to find the best things. I always try to find cartons that no one is looking through because I hate when I'm looking through one and someone comes and looks through the same one. However, it is every woman for herself and I have to urge myself toward aggression as I squeeze my arms through a solid wall of bodies and into cartons, grabbing what I can. The idea is to put anything you might want into your trashbag and decide on it later. I heard today that someone saw women dumping whole cartons into their bags to be sorted through later, but I can't quite fathom such uncivilized behavior. We are ladies not barbarians for goodness sakes.
After the initial rush my coworkers and I gathered in a corner and sat down in a circle to sort. I had managed to lose my roommate in the confusion and I could only hope she had survived the chaos unscathed. After I sorted my items into piles of yes and no, I started to try on the yesses. Unfortunately there were no mirrors so I basically had to go by the majority vote. At the end of the process I had a huge pile of clothes that I liked and had to sort again into definates and maybes. At some point during this endeavor, my roommate showed up and gave me several pairs of pants that didn't fit her. I have such a hard time finding pants out in the real world because they are always too long. However the pants at these sales always seem to fit me perfect - which is great considering they only come in one size and I happen to be that size.
All in all I walked away with 9 pairs of pants (including 3 pairs of jeans), a skirt, a dress, 4 sweaters and long sleeved shirts, and 10 short sleeved shirts and tank tops. All this for $135. When I got home and looked over the fruits of my labors, I found two price tags with suggested retail amounts - a shirt for $48 and a sweater for $118. In two items the clothes had virtually paid for themselves. So now perhaps you can understand why like it or not, I'll be working here until the end of time. They should mention these sales in the benefits package when they interview job candidates.
