Each issue of Galaxy Brain will contain one chapter of Kathryn McLeod’s fantastic book,  “THAT LOOKS GOOD ON YOU–YOU SHOULD BUY IT!” This is the twelfth chapter. You can read the other chapters here:

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven 
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven

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Chapter Twelve

Customer Blues

“My country right or wrong is a thing no patriot would say except in a desperate case. It’s like saying my mother drunk or sober.” G.K. Chesterton

“a rat is a rat.” Rihanna

“The customer is just the customer.” Steverino

That Steverino quote, by the way, is in counter to, “The customer is always right”, which comes to us from Harry Gordon Selfridge, of Selfridges, who died destitute at the age of 89.

Speaking of counters, Chestertons had one attached to the doorway, counting customers coming and going, the daily tally used to measure how successful we were at converting potential sales into actual sales.

This was referred to, with fear and loathing, as the conversion rate, and managers and sales associates alike would track it throughout a shift, cursing anybody who entered the store who didn’t look like she’d be making a purchase.

When I told that Trish about the counter attached to the doorway, she was outraged.

“The only thing a counter attached to a doorway is measuring is how stupid Chestertons HQ is. By the way, I walked in the other day but you weren’t there so I left. And before I could, three different girls told me their name. I think it was the same name, too. And each of them asked the same stupid question I couldn’t just say yes or no to, as if we were social equals, not one of us just out of diapers.”

“Haha, and the other about to go back into them!”

“Okay, walked into that one. I don’t know why or how you did it, Katie, but I am one woman who is very happy not to have wasted her life having children.”

“Yes! More life to waste being friends with me!”

Of course, I didn’t understand Trish’s explanation as to why the counter wasn’t measuring what Chestertons HQ thought it was measuring, just as I didn’t understand Arlene’s explanation of the phony returns scam. What I did understand is that, because of the counter in the doorway, sales associates and managers both hated browsers (the human female kind) as well as any customer with a bored husband in tow. Why? Because bored husbands wandered in and out of the store no matter how many times we offered up the uncomfortable bench under the sock shelf, complete with outdated Sports Illustrated, or, if there were no other customers in the store, the uncomfortable bench in the fitting room.

(On a side note: A few of Chestertons older French customers had husbands who took an active role in helping her select outfits, occasionally necessitating a request that they vacate the bench in the fitting room for the bench under the sock shelf. I think that, even more than their insistence on having a different word for everything, may be the why of the two solitudes.)

Customers with children over three feet tall were hated with extra hate on top.

Alas, Chestertons could have customers without sales associates but it wouldn’t have sales associates without customers, so we were definitely on the suck-it-up-buttercup side of the customer/sales associate equation. And it was only getting worse as customers realized that even though we couldn’t order what they wanted but we didn’t have from the catalogue, we could order what they wanted but we didn’t have from another Chestertons – including any one of the many Chestertons south of the Mason Dixon Line.

Meanwhile, HQ had the idea that if they gave us “client books” it would help us expand our customer base, you know, because of the added fun factor to our jobs of getting names and phone numbers from customers and writing them down in little black books, as separate from having this same information on the computer.

With a client book, we could call our customers to inform them of Chestertons’ promotions, too, as separate from the dozens of emails they got every week informing them of same.

This, of course, just led to more awkwardness between me and Gwen.

“Katie, I noticed your client book is still blank. You’re forgetting to enter your clients into your client book. It’s on the cash wrap.”

“The what?”

“The cash wrap.”

“The cash what?”

“Wrap, Katie, the cash wrap. The area around and opposite to where the cash registers are located. Everything in a store has a name, Katie, just like a ship, that’s why I say I run a tight ship. The cash wrap is the area around the cash registers.”

“Around and opposite? Or around or opposite?”

“The whole area is called the cash wrap. Remember ‘Welcome to Chestertons’? Eleanor Chesterton and the American ladies liberated from factories after the war ended? So she started selling reasonably priced quality fashions? ‘The Art of the Sale’? Engaging the customer, guiding her to regular priced items and away from the sales rack, wardrobing, accessorizing her choices with jewelry and scarves, and, most importantly, getting her over to the cash wrap to WRAP UP the sale?”

“Oh right, wrapping it up! Cash! Got it! I thought paper, wrapping paper. Oh lord that video. I especially loved the part where we find out Chestertons has been sold to a private equity firm. Did she say Eleanor Chesterton first sold out to General Electric? Foods? General Foods?”

“Katie, it doesn’t matter who owns us. We’re still Chestertons. And we have the same commitment to our clients that Eleanor Chesterton did. Pretty Clothes for Pretty Ladies. HUGS. HER. PCPL. So we need you to start working on your client book. Think of your client book as helping you meet your sales goals. Sales, sales, sales. Just write down the names and phone numbers of your clients, please. Start with one. Just one, Katie. You can do it.”

“But in what way are they my clients? I just got here, like… a while ago. Anna’s been here 25 years. Everybody’s her client. Or Ruth’s. Or Eva’s, and what about Eva. I’m afraid I’ll accidentally take one of Eva’s former clients and she’ll come back and pee in my locker.”

“Katie, just, for heaven’s sake, write down a name and a phone number. Put something in your client book so it isn’t empty. Rita’s going to be inspecting our client books on her next visit.”

Dum da dum dum DUM.

As I may have alluded to earlier, the only good thing about Rita was that she scared the crap out of Gwen. And everybody else at Chestertons, including customers. It could be the raspy delivery, the eau de cigar with a hint of last night’s whisky, or the vaguely threatening, “that looks good on you, you should buy it”, in the way that if you didn’t, some guy might show up at your place later and break your knees.

Some guy named Rita.

And even though my client book remained empty up to and including my last day at Chestertons, I did have a customer. Her name was Marion and our relationship began when, on my own initiative, I walked over to her and asked a question she couldn’t say no to.

“What can I help you find in Chestertons today?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, I’ll be hanging around in the sales rack over there if you need me.”

“Hey, you’re new. Where’d you get what you’re wearing? Not here – where?”

“Er, I’m probably not supposed to tell you this, but – the thrift shop?”

“Ugh, is that safe? Should I stand further away? How do I know you don’t have bedbugs?”

“When I get home I take everything down the basement, still in bags, and throw it all in the washing machine. If it can’t be washed, I don’t buy it, although I ignore dry clean only tags as manufacturer ass-covering. If it makes it, it makes it. It’s unconscionable that we don’t have textile recycling. Between dry clean only clothes that didn’t make it and unfinished sewing projects I’m responsible for half of Ottawa’s landfill. Then I dry it all in the dryer. I’m going to do that with clothes bought retail now, too, not that I’ll ever shop retail again. I haven’t even been here a month and a thousand women have tried on that mannequin combo, and we just got two runs in each size. And a hundred women have bought it and returned it because the elbow and pant knee patches aren’t where elbows and knees are. Plus it all comes from China and I read on Facebook about a woman getting blood poisoning from her new jeans? And apparently, the university girls tell me this anyway, customers buy clothes, wear them with the tags tucked inside, and then return them before the 90 days are up for a full refund. Lindsay told me customers even make returns after the 90 days are up, making my outfit from the thrift shop newer than that mannequin combo.”

“Wow. I never thought of any of that. I’m not surprised customers return stuff. Anna’s always telling them ‘that looks good on you, you should buy it’, and it doesn’t at all. Ruth is almost as bad. And Eva, oh my goodness. Honestly. A couple of weeks ago I was in here and Eva looked like she’d been stranded at the altar. She was wearing that outfit in the window. What woman over 16 wears a white dress? I can’t stay but when are you working next? I like your honesty.”

“I don’t know. Gwen does the schedule and it’s completely random. Hit or miss, I’m afraid.”

“Okay but I’m going to look in from the hall first. If you’re working I’ll come in.”

Over the next two years one conversation led to another until I figured out that Marion couldn’t actually afford to shop at Chestertons. It had to do with her husband Percy getting caught at something slightly less than legitimate, I think, so the good times had stopped rollin’. So now Marion came in to Chestertons for positive reinforcement that whatever the clothes were worth before, they weren’t worth it now.

If she hadn’t let it slip one day that Percy was worth more to her dead than alive, I might even have thrown Gwen a bone and entered her into my client book, but I decided to err on the side of caution and not get any more involved in her life than I already was.

“Katie, what do you think of this dress? I tried it on the other day and Anna said it looked good on me and I should buy it but I don’t think it does. It’s $200. I think it’s ugly, don’t you?”

“Easy one, Marion. Percy would have grounds for divorce.”

(By that time I pretty much pictured Percy happily canoodling with a young man on a beach in Mexico, the two of them in matching monogrammed smoking jackets.)

(Editor note to author: Update gay imaginings.)

“I knew it. That Anna. Is it really awful? It’s 50% off the markdown price, though.”

“Okay, Marion, but the judge won’t give you even a quarter of his money. If you lived in Texas he could probably have you executed.”

(As the gods of ladieswear are my witnesses, one day a customer’s more discerning and/or gayer half is going to show up at Chestertons and beat Anna with a board with a nail in it.)

“I’m so glad you’re working today, Katie. I can’t trust anybody here but you. Is there anything in the store today? I didn’t see anything. Anna got me to try on this dress. She’s just trying to get rid of it, isn’t she.”

“Well, Marion, to be fair to Anna, she is a professional salesperson, Chestertons’ top seller.”

“I’m not surprised. What are your hours? When do you work? I only trust you, you know.”

“My schedule’s so random, Marion. It’s crazy. Gwen probably extra randomizes mine, too, because my sales are low.”

“Really? But you’re so good. You always tell the truth.”

“You can probably trust Ruth when I’m not here.”

“I don’t know, Katie. I’ve seen her tell customers stuff looks good on them when it doesn’t.”

“Yeah but, Marion, you want the truth. Some customers don’t. Ruth is good at figuring out who wants the truth and who doesn’t.”

“Katie, she sold me that yellow dress with the pockets in front from last summer. Do you remember it? I returned it, of course.”

“The dishrag/housecoat dress?! Holy sh- jeepers. Is Percy alright?”

“I returned it before he got home from his monthly business trip to Mexico. Do you think Ruth thought I wanted the dress so she didn’t tell me it looked awful because she didn’t want to disappoint me?”

“Maybe, but Ruth’s been here almost as long as Anna and her sales are really high, too.”

“I wish you’d been here, Katie. You would have told me the truth. You’re honest.”

I felt a little guilty for selling out Ruth like that, but I have seen her fudge the truth on occasion. Although she did give me a heads up not to call it the dishrag/housecoat dress in front of Gwen because apparently Gwen liked it. Nobody else would have done that, given me a heads up. Every other sales associate would have enjoyed me calling it the dishrag/housecoat dress in front of Gwen in hopes that she’d retaliate by cutting my hours.

Nothing personal, just increasingly the difference between eating and not eating for one of us.

And Ruth was one of Chestertons’ top sellers, so maybe Marion was right. Maybe it was just relative to retail that I thought she was honest.

I had other customers, of course, not just Marion, but they weren’t good customers, either, just women stopping in to commiserate with me about how shitty it was in their gulag as they passed through the mall to catch a bus home. Occasionally, they might buy socks, or something at 70% off the already marked down price, but they weren’t about to help me meet a sales goal that didn’t mean anything to me anyway. And so it wasn’t long before Gwen noticed my clientele wasn’t helping her meet the store’s sales goal, either, and if she was manager during my shift, which she usually was, she’d put the run on them by inventing chores for me to do in the back – the joke being on her because if she had done that more often I might still be working at Chestertons.

Working in the back, unpacking the new inventory and re-organizing the old, was the only part of working at Chestertons that didn’t bring to mind One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, even though the stockroom was considered a gulag by the other sales associates.

By the way, speaking of unpacking new inventory, like I told Marion, everything in Chestertons came from China, wrapped in plastic, and if it, and/or the mall, had any kind of recycling program, nobody told me about it.

Think about that while you separate your plastics and your papers from your garbage, 99% of which is no doubt due to a recent shopping trip to the mall.

Anyway, while Chestertons pretended to its customers that it was all about HER, it didn’t pretend to us that our jobs were about anything other than sales. Sales, sales, sales. And meeting our sales goals. To this end, a sales associate was to give her name to a customer she’d helped, so that when a different sales associate at the cash asked the customer, “And who was helping you today?” the customer would know to say “Anna”. The sales associate at the cash was then honour bound to ring in the sale under Anna’s name, it being by having sales rung in under her name that Anna made her sales goals.

This was taken very seriously by both sales associates and customers, and often there’d be a customer swivelling her head around in a panic at the cash because she didn’t have a name to give when asked, “And who was helping you today?” She might have forgotten the name, but it was more likely she’d been given so many she had no idea which one to give.

The university girls were great ones for greeting (and re-greeting) customers, “Hi, I’m Emily. Can I help you? I mean, what brings you into Chestertons today?” and then immediately dashing off to greet another customer, “Hi, I’m Emily. Can I help you? I mean, what brings you into Chestertons today?” and then, because one middle-aged woman looked exactly like another middle-aged woman to them, immediately dashing off to re-greet the previous customer, Hi, I’m Emily. Can I help you? I mean, what brings you into Chestertons today?” Then they’d linger by the cash, which was often unmanned, to ring in any sales that happened by.

Of course, Anna did the same, lingered by the cash, except in between greeting customers and ringing in their purchases, she’d help them by saying, “That looks good on you, you should buy it”, if/when they came out of the fitting room for an opinion.

Astoundingly, not once did a customer object to being tasked with the responsibility for knowing the name of the sales associate who had helped her (or not). There could be lines at both cashes stretching out the door and into the mall and a transaction would be halted until the customer was able to come up with a name.

Often, too, there would be disagreements between competing sales associates, usually Anna and Eva, as to who should get credit for a sale, disagreements that took place while the customer was at the cash. And those customers would still come back to do more shopping at Chestertons.

So yes, I think we can all agree on who the problem is here.

I only ever gave my name to a customer if she asked for it, and again, it was astounding to me how often a customer did.

“What’s your name? I need to make sure you get credit for the sale.”

“Katie, bu-”

“Okay. Good. Katie. So when they ask at the cash who was helping me I’ll be sure to say Katie, Katie was helping me.”

The first few times I said, “It doesn’t really matter, you know, the names thing, sales goals.” But then the customer would insist that it did.

So I stopped my pointless education campaign and gave my name if asked.

Whenever I was on cash, which wasn’t often because I don’t like handling other people’s money and I didn’t want to have to deal with any issues (because it’s always something with shoppers), I never asked a customer, “And who was helping you today?” and yet she’d always be prepared with a name, surprised that I hadn’t asked.

So I’d just say, “Oh, okay, thanks.” Like it was an oversight and not deliberate and then either ring the sale in under my name or go down the list of people working that shift and ring it in under whoever I decided deserved one. If Anna was on shift I’d give it to her on account of Chestertons’ “Humiliate Anna into Quitting” campaign.

The exception to my dishonour was Ruth, because she was the only sales associate to honour the honour system of ringing the sale in under the name given to her by the customer, and not ringing every other sale in under her own name. Also, she was hardly ever on cash, as she was reluctant to admit that she needed reading glasses, and so made a lot of mistakes that required help from the university girls, who had the courage young people were born with when it comes to pressing keys and buttons on computers.

That Doomsday Clock won’t know what hit it when a millennial takes over the hands.

My other reason for not wanting to be on the cash was because, like you maybe, I grew up afraid to make a mistake, on account of it had been impressed upon me that life came with a scorecard, and if one day there were suddenly too many big black Xs on it, the crabby hand of death would reach out from the great beyond and slap me out of existence.

So instead I got vicarious thrills watching the university girls barely pay any attention at all to what they were doing on cash, making mistakes every other ring in like their lives weren’t hanging by threads at all.

I have long enjoyed the ease with which millennials make mistakes, although I’m increasingly terrified of flying as I note the age of pilots these days, and if I get sick, I figure I’ll just forget about cashing in on our free healthcare and live or die where I am.

Sometimes, under my dishonourable system, it ended up that sales associates who weren’t actually on shift got credit for sales made by sales associates who were, but I didn’t care. I had noticed early on in my sales career that when it was busy, and Gwen took over the cash, she never asked a customer who had been helping her. What she did was push Chestertons’ points card, without ever mentioning that the points expired every December 31^st, and that only a billionaire could possibly buy enough from Chestertons to collect the points necessary to score any deals before the points expired.

Sales goals had one purpose and one purpose only, to keep part-time minimum wage workers competing against each other so that nobody got any fancy ideas about working together. Because we all know what working together spells. That’s right. U-N-I-O-N.

Aside from which, the only real salespeople at Chestertons were Anna, Ruth, and until she left in a huff, Eva, and everybody knew it just like everybody knew that our middle aged customers were mostly annoyed by university girls giving them their names and then either disappearing or tailing them around the store pretending to be helpful.

Anyway, it’s probably not entirely accurate, but I like to think Arlene was my customer before Gwen poached her to be (not really) co-manager.

I was doing my usual hiding in the racks of clothes, sizing and styling and trying to restore order while avoiding eye contact with customers, when I overheard a woman telling Gwen all about her gastric bypass surgery. As she talked, sparing no details about pouches and reattachments, she piled clothes into Gwen’s arms, Gwen then passing them off to me to put in a fitting room. It was a completely one-sided conversation but I could practically see the dollar signs in Gwen’s eyes as Arlene got set to buy half the store and at full price, too.

And she did, she did buy half the store and at full price, too, only to return all of it shortly after Gwen hired her to be (not really) co-manager.

Of course, when Chestertons began its constructive dismissal campaign Arlene bought most of it back again in a desperate bid to keep her job. But for a while there, she was considered a master retail job getting strategist by the rest of us.

It was a gas working with Arlene because her life was her story and she lived to tell it. For instance, one time I was hanging about in the racks near the cash when I overheard her telling a customer about a sister patient who didn’t follow the gastric bypass surgery preparations quite to the letter, and so died a gruesome death post op, no gory detail spared in Arlene’s telling. And I’m sure the customer thought, as I did, that when the story was over it couldn’t get any worse, but we were both in for a treat when Arlene added, “Hang on. You’ll have to hold that thought for me while I deliver a certain burrito I shouldn’t have had for lunch into our state of the art sewage system, which is not a bit like those holes I had to dig myself to poop in on my last trip to Africa. BRB. Be right back”.

Sure, for some on the other side of the counter Arlene was off-putting, but for us on her side of the counter she was a gas. No customer, no matter how highly she thought of herself, could compete with the self-worth of Arlene, who, if a customer even hinted at a bit of attitude on the phone would be known to take the receiver away from her ear, look at it in amazement, and then hang it up.

Just like that.

Her attitude to life changed after waking up one day to find it in tatters, her husband having run off with his younger, slimmer assistant, who was also a man. So Arlene got herself the best lawyer her eventual ex-husband would pay for, looked about, and realized another sad truth, that there weren’t a lot of obese old people to be seen. And Arlene wanted to live to be old. So when doctors in Canada told her, no, gastric bypass surgery was too extreme, too dangerous, she hauled herself off to the good ol’ US of A, where no surgery is deemed too extreme, too dangerous, and got most of her stomach removed, intestines re-routed, the works.

And although she took him to the cleaners, she also forgave her ex-husband, whose business she had built from the ground up, admitting something that helped a lot with my own guilt with regard to Andy, “Katie, the fact I had to come to terms with before I could get it together to become the bitchin’ babe I am today is this: Nobody leaves a happy marriage.”

There was one customer, though, who would cause a particular pall to descend upon the store, regardless of who was working that day, a customer we knew by the package she’d be carrying as she came through the doorway: the American catalogue item returner.

And the pall descended with increasing frequency, too, as the catalogue expanded and the in-store selection of colours, sizes, entire items, contracted. Shoes, purses, and hats, all available in store when I started at Chestertons, no longer were when I quit.

Catalogue only.

Worse, the store absorbed these American catalogue returns, which had the dreaded effect of decreasing our sales total for the day. This in turn increased the likelihood that our hours would be cut for the following week, regardless of how busy the store might actually be.

As explained by Lindsay in an earlier chapter, the latest directive from HQ had Gwen basing our hours for the following week on how well the current week compared to the same week the previous year. And since our customer base was either dying, retiring, being laid off, or shopping online, this directive wasn’t about to work out in any way, shape or form for sales associates.

And then there was all the time spent calling around to other Chestertons to see if they had this or that item a customer was wanting that our Chestertons didn’t have, customer service that didn’t do anything for our sales goals, although I suppose it happened in reverse, too.

Customers came in all types, for sure, but even I who didn’t care if Chestertons lived to see another day grew to dislike the American catalogue shopper making a return.

Not that I ever even once processed an American catalogue return. That’s because Chestertons also covered the duty, I think, although not the shipping, or maybe it was the other way around, and only an assistant manager or manager could sign off on that sort of transaction.

Still, if it was Gwen doing the transaction, I’d hover around to see if this would be the customer to finally make her snap.

“Hi, I’d like to return this, please.”

“Absolutely! What was the problem?”

“Enh. You know. I liked it better on the model in the catalogue.”

“Okay, then. I’ll just do the refund for you. Are you in our system (looks down at address on package), oh, yes, there you are, Janet, do you have, oh, yes, that’s the receipt I need to refund the duty (or was it shipping?). You should look around while you’re here. We got something in the store the other day that’s similar to this but a little different. Katie? Do you want to show Janet where the double-faced fly fronts are?”

“The-”

“They’re in Misses hanging up on the other side of this wall? Delphinium and slate heather? You sold one earlier to the tall woman with red hair?”

“Oh right. Paaants?”

“Sweater coats, Katie, and I’m sure Janet-”

“Nah. I like shopping from the catalogue. Just do the return. I wanna beat the traffic home.”

It was hard at times like that not to wonder which was worse – Chestertons? Or its customers?

And, you know, like I said earlier, eventually it became common customer knowledge that they could order from the American Chestertons, too, and return crap they didn’t want to our Chestertons for a full refund.

Unrealistic expectations is my guess as to why there were so many returns, because there were a lot, thinking that if she ordered an outfit from the catalogue she, too, would look like the model wearing it.

“That looks good on the model in the catalogue, you should buy it.” said the little voice in her head sounding like a couple of seagulls fighting over a ham sandwich in a beachside parking lot.

Unfortunately for our Chestertons, too, the American stores had a wider selection of merchandise, more colours, and more sizes, including Women’s and Plus sizes that our Chestertons used to carry but no longer did. Just over the course of my two years there, Chestertons also lost the largest regular size and the smallest petite size, because the unattached to female bodies brains at HQ decided they weren’t worth it, a decision that completely denied the existence of hordes of women who questioned why Chestertons didn’t stock clothes for ever larger and even smaller women, both.

Once I knew how to spot the traitors, which is how I came to view the catalogue and American store returners, I’d make myself more scarce than usual.

Once, though, I ended up on the phone to a Chestertons in Louisiana or some damned place, and I have to say, American customer service for Canadian sales associates is much better than it would be if it were ever the other way around, which it pretty much never was, not while I worked there.

Maybe it’s the “hon” (for honey) after asking how she can help me and the “is there anything else you need and how ya’ll doing after your terrorist attack up there in… Ottawa is it? Terrible thing, we’re all prayin’ for ya’ll down here, hon, God bless ya’ll and keep ya’ll safe as I know He will, don’t you worry. Whoever your God is up there he’s a good One.”

It was an entirely different experience calling one of the Toronto Chestertons, let me tell you.

<Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring (etc for several more rings)>

“Chestertons.”

“Wow, you must be busy. It’s busy here, too. We’ve been trying to get through all day. You’re the first person to answer the phone. Lot of our customers wanting the velveteen <cough> jeans and you’re the only store in Canada that has them.”

(I have to cough between velveteen and jeans or it’s just too much of an oxymoron.)

“Call back later.”

“Well I’ve got the customer right here and she’s ready to ord-”

“Yeah, well, a customer just came into the store.”

<click>

I mean, sure, they’re my people, slackers with attitude, but still, make your stupid customer wait and help me out with my stupid customer, you good-for-nothing skiver.

Anyway, the American catalogue and American store returns were just two more reasons to hate working at Chestertons as far as I was concerned.

Meanwhile, I started noticing that my brain and my gut were reacting to sales in a way that was definitely short circuiting the lifeline on my hand that according to at least one palm reader promises a long and pointless existence. For instance, every time I made a small sale, like socks on sale, a little ka’ching would go off in my head. But every time I made a big sale, like a dress at full price, I’d feel nauseated, like I might throw up into the bag before I handed it to the customer who was wasting her money on overpriced clothes of dubious quality.

It was hard not to proselytize to my retail peeps about the unsustainability of the system, too, whenever they’d buy something from Chestertons, the pressure on us being relentless.

“You know, even that fascist capitalist anti-Semite Henry Ford believed that his workers should be able to afford his products and there’s no way based on what I know you make working here that you should be shopping at Chestertons.”

“Oh c’mon, Katie, live a little. That pink sweater would look good on you, you should buy it.”

Well I didn’t want the pink sweater but – hypocrite alert – I did live a little with a pair of cream corduroys. They were something I’d always wanted, my older sister had a pair that didn’t get handed down to me because I outgrew her before they could, and there they were in the unlikeliest of places, Chestertons. The thing was, I didn’t want to get into buying clothes because even with our 60% discount on new inventory, a pair of pants cost more than I made in two shifts, and I really only got enough shifts to cover groceries. Other bills I was paying out of savings.

(Full disclosure: In spite of having listened respectfully to the very best advice, which is to draw up a grocery budget, or at least a meal plan, I have gone away and done the direct opposite, which is nothing. And even when the very best advice was my own that I was giving to others, unsolicited, mind you, Chestertons definitely had me on the cream corduroys.)

Anyway, the corduroys were still in the back, having not yet been put on the floor, when a woman showed up looking for a pair of white pants for a themed party she was going to that evening. So I showed her a couple of pairs of white pants, but they didn’t fit the bill. She was disappointed, and, I don’t know, I felt like I should mention the cream corduroys.

“Yeah! Get them for me!”

As soon as I did, though, I realized that, more than anything else in life at that moment, I wanted them for myself. But was I a 2 regular or a 4 petite? Was she a 2 regular or a 4 petite? Shit. I should have tried them on so I’d at least know which size I wanted.

“Ruth! Think! Quick! Ethical sales dilemma! (Also, oxymoron alert!) I have a customer who wants a pair of white pants but we don’t have any that fit the bill. It’s for a themed party this evening. So I told her about the cream corduroys but now I want them and she looks to be about the same size as me, a 2 regular or a 4 petite! And we only got one of each size in the shipment! What should I do?”

Asking Ruth “what should I do” isn’t like asking Jesus “what should I do” because Ruth isn’t a martyr, she understands and respects rational self-interest. It’s not like asking Spock “what should I do”, either, because she understands that the one pretty much always matters more than the many, or the other one, in retail.

“Oh no, Katie. You didn’t try them on yet? Okay, let me think.”

“Okay, 2 regular or 4 petite.”

“Hm, a 2 regular might be too wide in the hips, but a 4 petite might be too short in the crotch.”

“Yeah, nice that we get 2 regulars now. No more 18s, though.”

“That’s going to be very disappointing for our larger customers. It’s already hard for them to find fashionable clothing at affordable prices. Still, maybe by not stocking the 18 it will encourage them to-”

“Yeah, yeah, diet, exercise down to 16. What should I do?”

“I’m going to guess the 2 regular would be better for you so take her the 4 petite.”

“Okay, done.”

And I zipped into the back, got the 4 petite (which I’d hidden with the 2 regular until I had a chance to try them on) out from under the huge stack of ugly beige elastic waist old lady pants that weren’t selling (for some reason Gwen was pretending not to understand), and returned to the fitting rooms.

“Here you go, I found them in a 4 petite.”

“Don’t you have a 2 regular? I’m usually a 2 regular.”

“Um, well, I’ll look, but try the 4 petite. They’re made long in the crotch. And leg.”

And she tried on the 4 petite but even I had to concede they were splitting her up the middle. Also, she looked like she was waiting for the flood, as we used to say back in the 70s when bullying was part of the school curriculum and somebody showed up in too short pants. Besides, I’d kind of resigned myself to the possibility that this was karma for… some wrong thing or other I’d done.

But then when I gave her the 2 regular to try on and she asked me what I thought I decided I was definitely a 2 regular, “I think they look tight on one side and loose on the other. Weird. And I can see right through them to your skin. They’re not thick enough. It’s like you may as well wear your underpants on the outside of those corduroys.”

And even as I was lying so convincingly, Satan nodding impressed from over my shoulder while we three stared in the dressing room mirror at my customer in a pair of perfectly fitting cream coloured corduroys, she seemed reluctant to concede defeat.

So I went deeper.

“And you wanted white, remember? Those aren’t white, they aren’t even cream, they’re, why, they’re almost yellow, really. Is there such a thing as dandelion cream? Also, $159 for not really what you want, too tight, too loose, I see London I see France I see big old underpants, yellow?”

And then Ruth came in, “Ooh, do we have those in a bigger size, Katie? Or smaller, maybe? They look, tight. And loose. Are they… yellow? Oh my goodness, underpants!”

But then suddenly I wasn’t sure again if I really was a 2 regular or if maybe I was a 4 petite. I wasn’t even sure this customer and I were the same size the more I stared at her in those perfectly fitting pants. So I stalled with more unconscionable lying whilst sending signals to Ruth in hopes that this woman about to buy the pants I may or may not want (were they worth it even if they did fit? What was 60% off $159? Where the hell was that damned Anna the one time I need her?) would just get frustrated altogether and leave.

“Well, Ruth, our young lady here tried on the 4 petite, but they were too short in the crotch. I would have thought she was a 4 petite, but, is she shorter than me? Like, I’m just looking at below the waist here. And I’m also looking at the 2 regular while I stand beside her here in the mirror, and I’m wondering if the fit, well, yeah, okay. What do you think? You’re the best judge of what size would fit m- er, I mean-”

“Definitely, Katie. This 2 regular is definitely too tight in one area, too loose in another on her. Isn’t that just how it goes some times? One’s too short, another’s too not right, not a good fit. At all. If only we had 3, right, Katie? That would be the pant for her, a 3. Or a 1 ½. And absolutely these pants are more yellow than white. You wanted white. It’s a themed party after all.”

Later, after our customer left the store empty-handed (I suggested to her that she check out the lower levels of the mall, naming a couple of possibilities that it turned out had closed since the last time I went anywhere in the mall) I thanked Ruth for compromising her integrity so whole heartedly on my behalf.

“Oh well, Katie, it’s important for our morale that we have first dibs on the clothes. After all, Chestertons wants us to buy something from each collection and those cream corduroys will look great on you. You’ll just want to be careful about underwear. Or maybe wear a tunic. I could practically see through them to her skin.”

“So they were too tight on her!”

“Oh yes, Katie. I would never tell a customer that pants were too tight for her if they weren’t. And too loose on one side, maybe? I’m just surprised the 4 was too short. It’s getting so we can’t trust our sizes at all. I’m going to start encouraging my customers to try everything on. They’re used to buying a certain size without bothering but we’re getting a lot of returns and I really don’t like processing them. And they put Gwen in the worst mood.”

And I’m sure you’d like to read that karma was visited upon me and neither the 4 petite nor the 2 regular fit, but in fact the 2 fit perfectly and I learned a valuable lesson about putting myself before customers. And then I learned a valuable lesson about not checking to make sure that my son (remember? he who had boomeranged home?), hadn’t set the washer to hot, before washing my brand new cream corduroys that cost me two shifts pay.

And then shrinking them further by tossing them into the dryer.

They went in a bag and straight to the thrift shop and I would appreciate it very much if we never spoke of them again.

Thank you.

My problem with customers was mostly that they were shopping at Chestertons, I guess, which I realize now wasn’t entirely fair. But there were a few customers I liked, customers I’d talk to even, like Amy, whose daughter was getting married, and so Amy was looking for a dress to wear to the wedding, but then her daughter suddenly called it all off and got a rabbit instead, so Amy decided to blow her dress budget on Chestertons’ new line of active wear.

Well wasn’t Amy in luck because the university girls were gaga about a store that sold active wear exclusively having an awesome sale, so I redirected Amy there and never saw her again.

And there was Nancy, well into her 80s, whose husband was in a nursing home. She’d hang out before or after going to the nursing home to feed her husband lunch. We talked a lot about families and healthcare and it was Nancy who told me to tell my mother to get out of her seniors’ residence and into a nursing home because they were a fraction of the price and she’d get more care.

“And you’ll inherit more money that way, too. Get on it now. Don’t wait until your mom uses up all her money. Those seniors’ residences are bloodsuckers.”

And there was Mary who liked to walk the mall for exercise. Her husband had cancer, and was a former United Church minister, so we talked a lot about healthcare, too.

But mostly our customers were shopping in Chestertons for clothes. And shopping for clothes, once you’re middle-aged, is often fraught with disappointment and expense as retail expands and choice narrows, and we just don’t have it left over for each other to care about who’s making money working and who isn’t. I certainly don’t have it left over to care about sales associates when I’m shopping. In fact, probably not like you at all, I can’t stand sales associates when I’m shopping, which is why I no longer shop.

Also, I don’t need to buy clothes. No woman does. It’s a fact. A Canadian fact.

I can see a sales associate approaching before I even enter the store now, so I don’t, I walk on by. I know all about the sales goals they’ve been assigned, the screwing over of the sales associate who would actually be helpful if another sales associate hadn’t greeted me first.

“HiImRachel10%offpinkonesiestoday!”

Besides, I recently read “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo, an expert on the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing who has channeled her… anorexia(?) into a movement to purge us of our possessions, excepting those that are either useful or spark joy.

And after a brief overview of my possessions, it would appear that I have everything I need, plenty I don’t, and nothing that sparks joy.

I can’t imagine there’s anything I could buy now that would change the above.

I guess what I’m trying to say in this chapter is this, having discovered that I don’t belong on one side of the counter, I find now that I don’t belong on the other side, either.