Saks and the City

As previously mentioned, I’m in the market for a new Chanel bag. Ever since I returned my turquoise metallic quilted 2.55 Chanel flap bag, I have regretted it. I miss it very much.

Yada yada yada.

As a result of this obsession, I have a few stories.

I like to do my homework when I’m in the market for a purchase. So, I go shopping. One day I popped into Saks Fifth Avenue to take a look at the Chanel department. I was inspecting some of the cheaper bags. About $2200. Hmm. A bargain!

Suddenly, a salesgirl was on me. She was statuesque, blond, well dressed, face totally made up, and striking. Her name was Svetlana and she had a thick Russian accent. I made the mistake of telling her that I was looking for a classic flap bag. She ran away for a minute and came back with a black calfskin single flap jumbo bag with silver hardware. It was gorgeous.

She told me it was on sale. Only $4000.

Wow! What a deal!

Except I was looking for a jumbo black calfskin double flap with gold hardware. But it WAS a bargain. The one I wanted would be more.

It was lovely.

I looked at myself in the mirror for a while. And I looked good!

Svetlana needed to excuse herself for a moment to leave me with the Chanel. Before she left she warned, “Do not let go of the bag. People are looking at it.”

I had noticed that another salesgirl kept approaching Svetlana and whispering something, then looked at some other customers. Then walked away.

They were staring. Not at me.

At Chanel.

It was freaky.

And such pressure!

While Svetlana was gone, I was trying to figure out what to do. The bag WAS a good price. But it wasn’t exactly what I had wanted. For that money, it really should be exactly what I want. Right?

But then again, it was fabulous.

Maybe I should just buy it. The vultures are circling. Omg!

The other salesgirl was hovering.

Customers were still staring.

They were like zombies in a Dawn of Dead re-make.

I was sweating.

My heart was racing.

The other salesgirl passed and stared at me again.

As the time passed, I began to calm down a bit.

I thought, I need to either buy this thing or get the heck out of here. But do I have a credit card I can use? Do I have the money? No! Ugh!

If I leave now, I won’t have the pressure of Svetlana and her damn accent trying to convince me to buy this thing.

I kind of had a tiny angel on one shoulder telling me to leave and a red devil on my other shoulder telling me to buy it.

Damn them!

I put down the Chanel and hightailed it outa there.

As I exited the large double doors and stepped onto Fifth Ave.

I was able to breathe.

Holy shit, that was close!

Your Money or Your Shoes

My sister, Sookie, just reminded me about a shoe story that happened several years ago and decided I must share.

I’m going to tell you something and I beg of you, please don’t judge… I used to shoe shop at Nine West.

Yes, I said it.

It was before I discovered where to purchase my lovely Louboutins, Diors, Manolos, Prada, and Yves Saint Laurents.

I had been eyeing a pair of turquoise blue satin peep-toe sling backs with green and blue beading, in the window of Nine West on Fifth Avenue. One day I decided to go in and try them on. And so I did.

I was definitely going to buy them. Now it was just a matter of which size; the eight or the eight-and-a-half. Every time I buy a new pair of shoes, that is the main dilemma. I agonize over it every time.

So, it’s 45 minutes later and I finally decided on the eight-and-a-half. It turned out, the shoes were very rare and there were limited sizes. I asked my sales girl wrap them up and agreed to meet her at the register.

I was standing at the register, waiting for the girl to ring up my shoes, when all of a sudden a SWAT team burst into the shop. They locked the doors and announced that no one could come in or go out of the store. There had been a robbery.

Everyone in the store stopped what they were doing and looked around at each other. I was still at the counter. I grabbed my shoe box and ducked, just in case of gun fire.

Then I looked up at my sales girl, standing behind the counter and whispered, while hugging the box, “Could you please just ring these up real quick so I can get out of here?”

She looked down at me in disgust as the SWAT team handcuffed the assailant.

Well, I do have my priorities.

Diapers or Depends?

I attended a party recently. There I saw many old friends and acquaintances. It was very nice to see old familiar faces. One of those faces was my frenemy, Malice. I hadn’t seen Malice, since she stole my boyfriend for like the umpteenth time two years ago. But all the same, somehow, it was nice to see her.

As she waved frantically at me from the bar, I noticed a crusty old man standing next to her.

Naaah. It couldn’t be, I thought.

It was.

Malice introduced me to her ‘boyfriend,’ Old Crusty Guy. No, his name was Bob.

Bob was tall, balding, white hair. Pasty.

Malice told me he was 62. Looked more like 102 to me.

Wow. Malice used to steal the cutest guys from me. Now look at what she ends up with. But really, good for her I say. It’s more than what I got. A whole lotta nothin.

Later on, our friend Julianne started bitchin’ to me about Malice’s beau.

But when you think about it, that’s the guy we want. That’s the age we should be going for. It’s good. If our man is so old, we will never be. We will always be young.

Julianne goes to me, “Did you see Malice’s boyfriend? We don’t go for that. We got for the young ones!”

Who’s we?

That’s not true. I’m not attracted to a guy in diapers.

I’m not attracted to a guy in Depends either.

Hmmm. That doesn’t leave me with many options.

This sucks.

Single women my age are screwed.

Thou Doth Protest Too Much

The first time Yenta Hessa and I went to our Hampton house this summer, we went up to the house and knocked on the door. A leprechaun opened the door. It was a 40-50 year old man with shoulder length red curly hair, a 1970’s break dance lid and plaid pants. Like one of the Fat Albert cartoon characters. His name was Jesus (pronounced ‘hey-soos’; accent on the ‘soos’). He was very nice and helped us with our bags.

Jesus had a bangin’ body and turns out was staying at the house for the entire summer. He lived there in the summer, Miami in the winter, and the Upper East Side the rest of the time. He drove a BMW sports car. So, I thought it was natural to ask what Jesus did for a living.

His reply was, “Umm. Uhhh. Ohh. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. Umm. Uhh. Ohh.”

“Huh? What kind of answer was that? What did that mean?”

Jesus could not answer and seemed offended by the question.

Anyway, he was actually very sweet and believe it or not, one of most normal guys at the house all summer! And as the summer progressed, I started to find him very hot.

But he had no interest, and I’m sure it was much better that way.

Our summer pass time was to figure out what Jesus did to earn money. There was a rumor that he was a male escort.

Then a strange thing happened in October. Jesus called me and asked Yenta Hessa and me to dinner and/or a movie that weekend.

Hmm. Interesting.

I figured it wasn’t a date and accepted that. He was going to a protest and would meet me afterwards. He is something of an activist.

But on the day of, he asked if I wanted to invite Yenta to come. He said, she can come along, but it would be dutch. I decided not to call her.

Dutch? Does that mean it will be dutch for me too? Is it a date? Or is it not a date? If it is, what should I wear? If it’s not, what should I wear?

Then it began. I needed to figure out what to wear. A dress or jeans? Sky high heels or flats? Heels would be a date. Flats would be just a friendly dinner.

It took hours.

I finally decided on cute skinny jeans, cute T, and sky-high Yves Saint Laurent Tributoo platform pumps. Fabulous.

We were going to meet at a neighborhood restaurant and then take it from there. I was a few minutes early, as I always am. I waited outside. It was a beautiful night.

All of a sudden I saw him. He was approaching me fast wearing …

… Wait for it …

Roller blades.

As he reached me to kiss me hello, he nearly knocked me off my Yves Saint Laurents because he used me to stop himself from rolling.

Really?

He was wearing sweat pants, a plaid shirt, and again, in case you missed it,,, roller blades!!!

I could do nothing but laugh about how funny that was. There I was in YSL, having dinner with a guy in roller blades.

No. He never took them off. They stayed on the whole time. He told me he wore them because he was late for the protest and needed to make some time.

He walked me home after dinner. Well, it’s more like I walked and he rolled.

God, I better not see anybody I know.

Oh, by the way, it was a date. He paid.

Damn!