The Other Stories

Okay, I should've just told the Gap and Swarovski stories since I mentioned them. Now you probably won't think they're that great because I talked about them and now you all have high expectations and because you kinda had to be there for the Swarovski one, but I'll try.


The Gap Story
After Banana this weekend, we went into the Gap. We moseyed on over to the jeans when a very awkward male teenage sales person approached us. He asked if he could help us find anything. we told him we were just browsing. We really were just browsing. Then he went on to tell us about the jeans. He said "Well, we have some jeans laying out here on this table (right in front of my face) and then we have some on this wall and over there (both places flanking the table in front of us)." Thank you Captain Obvious.

He kept talking about the jeans like we'd never been into a Gap before. My two friends were bitches and started laughing and left me with him. He told us that their jeans "are kind of confusing because they have both the waist size (27) and the 'real' size (6) listed on the label. (not really confusing to me, i actually kind of like it, but thanks anyway) And if you want to know about the style of the jeans, there are descriptions on the boxes next to them (points to obvious LARGE black boxes next to all the jeans)"


Wow, I almost lost it. Seriously dude? Well, I thanked him and went on about my business. Then about 15 minutes later, I made the poor decision to wander up to the front while waiting on a friend to check out. I overheard the same awkward teen talking to a woman customer. She asked "I'm not sure what the difference is between these two pairs of jeans." His response? "Neither do I, I'm not the designer." Bahahahaha!!!!! Say what?!?! I thought he'd just tell her to look on those magical boxes that describe the style. I had to leave the store immediately.

The Swarovski Story
I cannot explain in human words how long it took me to find earrings for my wedding. All I can guestimate is hours upon hours. I went to places I'd never heard of, never been to, and will never go again. One of them being Swarovski. Oookay. My bff Mary went to help me look after I called her likely in a complete meltdown about the impossibility of finding appropriate earrings. How can something so simple be so hard?!?! We had literally gone into every.single.store. in our mall that had even the remote possibility of carrying earrings. We went into a stripper-esque store. I'm completely serious.


So we finally went into Swarovski. It's a small store. I do believe that Mary and I were both wearing different shades of purple shirts. I actually think that I was wearing a purple t-shirt and shorts and she was wearing a dress or something. We sometimes accidentally wear similar colors. But never the same style. I am a jeans and t-shirts girl and she is way more stylish. Sorry, I digress.

We had just left the Gap (unrelated to the above story) where I believe several people told us that we matched. Um, no. We did not match. We were wearing similar colors. It was annoying. So, we walked into Swarovski. As I said, very small store. I could tell almost immediately that a)I wouldn't find anything, and b)very bad things were about to happen. We were greeted by a very bubbly albeit very flighty 20-something girl. He first comment? "Oh my gosh you're both wearing purple!!!!!!!" By this time in the search, I had taken to being silent and letting Mary speak for me. She's nicer than I am. So Mary was like, "oh, yeah I guess we are" or something like that. She and I exchanged a look. The sales girls replies, "That's okay, purple's a good color." Excuse me? Well, thank you for validating our preference for purple on this particular day. She asks what we're looking for. Again, Mary speaks for me, "She's looking for earrings for her wedding." At this point in the day, I was literally cringing at hearing the word 'wedding' because of the response it elicited. (Now I have to tell you the Limited story). The sales girls says to me "Oh my gosh, are you nervous?!?!" What? This was not the usual first response when someone heard I was getting married. I, as politely as I could, said "Not really". By this time, I had pretty much looked at the whole store and was ready to leave. The sales girl said "Do you want me to get a mirror and just start pulling out tons of earrings?" I said "No, I don't really see anything that I like, thank you." And we left.

The Limited
I love The Limited. Love. You know how the sales girls in there are always so cute and dressed up and usually in clothing from the store? Well, I think that this girl missed the memo. We were in there on the same day as the Swarovski incident (pre-Swarovski), so we were on the hunt for earrings. We would go into a store, look at nothing else, and leave. In our Limited, the earrings are in the very back of the store. We didn't see anything so we were leaving. We were about 2/3 of the way to the front, when a strangely-dressed girl who was at the front turned to our general direction, opened her arms out to the side as W-I-D-E as she could and called (yelled, really) out to us "SO WHAT DO WE THINK?!?!?!?!" Huh?! Mary and I were half laughing, half confused as to who she was speaking to. We were also super confused at to whether or not she really worked there. She was wearing this really weird outfit that looked like it came from the Bargain Basement. (to clarify, I have no problem with clothes from the Bargain Basement, but you just don't expect to see employees at The Limited wearing that at work, I'm pretty sure that they are supposed to wear clothes from the store) Turns out that, yes, she was talking to us. Lucky us! We were like what do we think about what? So of course, Mary gave her the dreaded response, we were looking for wedding earrings. Oh.My.Gosh. I thought the girl was going to eat me alive. She was like, "OHHH!!!! Give me a HUG!!!" *pause, pause, then extremely awkward hug* She proceeded to tell us that she had just finished planning her best friend's boyfriend's wedding. What? Isn't that your best friend's wedding?? I didn't get it, and still don't to this day. She kept talking about how she had planned this wedding and telling us stuff and saying how she could give us names of some great stores for earrings. Her great suggestions? Claires and The Icing. hahahahaha!!! Seriously, I think this girl wanted to leave her shift at The Limited and come with us to look for earrings. And then she wanted to plan my wedding. Or, maybe she wanted to plan my fiance's wedding ;) I think we stood there for a GOOD 8-10 minutes listening to her talk. It was so weird. You sorta had to be there for that one, but if I ever ask Mary "So what do we think?!" we both crack up.

I hope you got a giggle out of those :)

p.s. is it politically correct to call retail employees "sales people"? My hunch is probably not.