christmas commercialism, take 2 (final)

today i had more success at finishing my shopping than yesterday. i located and purchased the one remaining xmas gift for doc — the one in whose pursuit i had the “bitch experience” at town east mall last night and i think that i also forgot to mention that the traffic was so terrible (like dorothy parker said “this was fancy terrible. this was terrible with raisins”) that it took me about 55 minutes to get out of the mall parking lot and home, which is only about six miles total — at the dallas galleria, and although i was dreading driving over there and trying to park and navigate through the hordes of rich folks, it was surprisingly calm for two weeks before christmas.

(boy howdy, that was one hell of a run-on sentence!)

the salesdrones at the galleria kiosks have apparently been instructed to snag passersby by any means necessary to bolster their holiday sales. they were very agressive, almost uniformly so. a woman at a skin care products kiosk stepped in front of me as i was walking past and said, “ma’am, can i ask you a question about your skin?” in a way that made it clear that my skin was dry, alligator-like, ugly, blemished, and in desperate need of the kind of help that only her $180 sea weasel placenta sugar scrub could rectify. a dude at a jewelry kiosk (ugly jewelry, at that) accosted me and tried to grab my upper arm while intoning in a low voice “i have something very special to show you, miss.” yeah, i bet you say that to all the girls.

what do you say to these people? it’s not in my nature to be rude and ignore them. i think i usually say something like “no thanks” or “not today” while making eye contact, smiling briefly, and most importantly, walking on by without stopping. i’m not a fan of aggressive sales tactics. in fact, it generally has the opposite effect on me than what they intend — i resolve NOT to buy anything from a pushy salesperson.

i learned my lesson last christmas when the guy at the cinnamon almond stand suckered me into buying some almonds. i mean, they were tasty, but not $25 per pound tasty. i was probably his first customer of the day, and i think i fell prey to his winning smile, cute foreign accent, metrosexual shoes, and the free samples. i know better now.

i had a great lunch with kathryn, and spent some time catching up with her. it sucks that she lives in the far reaches of what might not even be considered “the metroplex” anymore… although i know she loves it out there. damn her and her ability to see stars at night!

she and i went to another place where i thought there might be an off chance that i could find one other particular thing for doc for christmas, and surprisingly enough, i had some success there too. i didn’t find what i came in to get, but i found something else that i think he’ll like. and if not, it’s exchangeable. 🙂

then we went over to the downtown neiman markus to look at their christmas window displays. their theme this year is, apparently, either Attack of the One Billion Killer Butterflies, or Holiday in the Trailer. they had these odd full-size representations of airstream and other style trailers throughout the store, made of plexiglass, with really expensive crap displayed inside. one of the mannekins inside a trailer had hair that looks like mine when i blow dry it.

giant strands of gold and green butterflies hung down from the ceiling throughout most of the first floor. oh, also the elevator bank, which was probably thirty feet long and maybe twenty in height, was completely swathed in big gold sequins. you know how sometimes you’ll see a sparkletts water truck on the road, and it’s got that wacky thing on the back made of hundreds of silvery hanging tiles that flap around with the movement of the truck, which i guess is supposed to make it look like shimmering water? this is what the elevators looked like, except in gold.

so all in all, totally ostentatious.

maybe all i need to do is blow dry my hair and wear something with metallic sequins to make people think i’m fancy.

i got some great laughs from looking at the price tags on things. i mean… shit, i could make two house payments or buy a ragged yellow and white tweed cardigan.

oddly enough, i didn’t get the feeling from any of the salespeople that (like valerie said the other day) i clearly did not belong in their store. i had on levi’s 501s and a pink cardigan over a green “where the wild things are” tee shirt, and riverdancing shoes. in otherwords, they don’t sell anything i was wearing at neiman’s. yet i didn’t get “the look” from anyone. maybe they’re desperate for sales. who knows.