My sister calls me on the phone to pick up something for her husband that cannot be obtained in Canada for Christmas. A pair of jeans from Ralph Lauren. Ah, a quick visit to the RL web site shows that there is a store in Beverly Hills on Rodeo Drive. Of course, why wouldn't there be? Now, to go shopping in Beverly Hills one cannot wear their Sunday sweats even if it is Sunday. You must dress up because if you look like a homeless person no one will pay attention to you.
So, off I go with my best jeans and t-shirt to Rodeo drive. I park my mommy mobile, minivan in amongst all the Mercedes, BMW's and Rolls Royces and trot over to Ralph Lauren. I turn the corner into the store and the entry way is bizarre. I stopped dead in my tracks. Stepped back a few steps to make sure I turned into the right store. Yes, it says Ralph Lauren on the awning. I bravely venture ahead through what can only be called a jungle/arboretim tunnelway and eventually come upon the actual store. The store is divided into rooms as if you were in a very large home that sold RL. Its very confusing. I staggered around all the finely coiffed shoppers and wondered who worked here. None of the people were wearing name tags. I suppose that must be tacky.
"Oh, there's someone with a name tag", I say to myself. I approach this hispanic woman cleaning a counter top and ask her wear the jeans are. Because I've been walking around this bizarre store for 10 minutes and cannot find any jeans. In her broken english this nice cleaning lady (as it turns out) points me to a sales associate. I'm sure I looked like I walked right out of Alabama, but she helped me anyway. I asked for the jeans section and she calmly says, "they are not displayed, what size would you like I will go get them." Why wouldn't they display them? Probably beneath the store to display them? Who knows, I thought they'd fit in perfectly with all the bright pink, yellow, orange and other loud colors that I cannot believe a man would wear. Matter of fact, my sister asked me that same question the other day. She said, "do alot of gay men shop at Ralph Lauren?" When I was walking around there were 3 guys standing around feeling boxer shorts and commenting on their softness. I looked and listened trying hard to determine if they were straight or gay. I couldn't figure it out. Perhaps the male Ralph Lauren shopper is a breed unto their own.
RL had the size I needed but she convinced me to go to the mall to look at the department stores. You see my sister wanted a specific style # which the saleswoman felt was at a department store. I'm not sure if she was just trying to get rid of me or if she was convinced of this. So off to Century City Mall I go, hitting 2 department stores, which had the same damn jeans they had in Beverly Hills but of course, not the size needed. So in a huff (as only I can do) I go driving back to the Beverly Hills store. I can't find parking anywhere! So screw it, I went home figuring I'd go back Monday morning.
Then I got this bright idea to look on ebay. Guess what I found! The exact jeans needed, perfect, with the tags and everything right on them, for 1/4 the price! Woohoo! I bought them this morning and they will be here tomorrow. Screw Beverly Hills baby! Online shopping rules!
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