It’s not often that I jump up and cheer after reading
Leah McLaren’s columns in the
G&M’s Saturday
Style section – often finding them just a touch on the shallow side for my tastes – but this week’s column,
“Are you being served? Probably not” is right on the mark. Which is to say, it certainly hit a nerve, and had me shouting “Right on, sista!” all the way through the article. McLaren’s account of the lousy service she recently received from a (19 year-old gold lame tube-top wearing) bitchy shopgirl at an American Apparel store in Toronto echoed numerous recent excursions of my own that have ended in vituperative blog rants in my head regarding the sub-standard service and uncalled-for levels of snark I’ve received from late-teenage, pre-post-pubescent hipster salesgirls.
(The irony lies in the fact that, still in the throes of puberty, these comely lasses have yet to receive that delightful dose of post-pubescent flesh-deposits that settle onto the hips and belly somewhere between age 23 and 26. These things appear literally overnight. One minute you’re checking your gorgeous ass out in the mirror, the next your horrified mother is staring back at you. Sans old-lady hips, these shopgirls squeeze into the silhouette du jour without a moment’s thought. And don’t they look hip in that designer gear? Remember your own days of wearing the it shape? Etc.)
Perhaps it’s just me, and perhaps I am getting old, and certainly I’ve fit the role of a 19-year-old snark in my day, but these “needlessly resentful retail staff” seem to be everywhere these days.
Killing some time on Granville last month, I fingered a particularly cute pair of eggshell-blue retro-panties with sweet lime green ruffles on the bum. Picked up the Medium and the Large to try on, because, unlike a-6-or-an-8 McLaren, I’m an 8... or a 10,.. or a 12 depending on the designer or the day. I’m curvy, always have been – and heavier on the bottom like certain string instruments – so I usually fit a medium or a large in the local designer shops I prefer to frequent – if I’m lucky.
Often I can’t fit into anything at all, which is frustrating given that I’m not actually overweight, and that I really would prefer to buy locally made clothing, for all sorts of ethical and environmental as well as style-conscious reasons. In fact, I had to quit
Weight Watchers at Work after eight weeks because the rhetoric grew to be too much for me – pun intended. We were continually being told that we were making healthy choices
for life! For our health! And for our future! You’re not doing this to look good in a swimsuit, the leader would crow,
you’re doing this to lower your cholesterol levels! You’re doing this to live longer! And I thought, well, no, actually my cholesterol and blood pressure are perfect. I’ve got a
body mass index of 23, which last time I checked was a-ok, and I’ve got a husband who goes nuts for my
big fleshy curves. I’m doing this because I want to shop at the little Main street and Gastown boutiques that I like, and because I want to fit some of the current silhouettes. I’m interested in the aesthetic and I like fashion. Is that so wrong?
Eventually I felt so disingenuous in the WW group that I had to leave. Plus, my inner competitive jerk wasn’t handling the fact that the larger women were dropping pounds left and right, while my body was stubbornly clinging to every last bit of fat it had amassed since my university days.
Oh yeah, and I was ending far too many days bawling in the corner from hunger, hapless husband trying to force-feed me some soup, while I insisted that I’d used up all my points for the day. In any case, smaller than the oft-quoted ‘average’ size of the Canadian woman, I have a hell of a time finding fashion-forward clothing in my price range. I can’t imagine what it’s like for folks who are actually overweight. Incidentally,
according to my friends at the Public Health Agency of Canada, a BMI under 23 is associated with a "higher risk of death..."Back to Spank, clutching the panties and a few other items, I attempt to enter a change room. The gamine indie chic in ballet flats swiftly takes the hangers from me, promising to leave the panties on the counter till I’m done. I tell her I’d planned to try them on. Her gaunt face sinks into a sneer. “Uh, you can’t try those on.” Why not? “Store policy.” So how do you know if they fit or not? “The sizes are pretty standard” she snaps, haughtily, adding as I try another rebuttal “how would
YOU like it if you bought underwear and someone else had
TRIED THEM ON?!?!”
This is ridiculous. She’s incredulous. I’m incredulous. Wait, have I missed something here? Is this another of those little idiosyncrasies I’ve picked up from my mother that turn out to be completely absurd to the rest of the world? Is it not common practice to try on undergarments to make sure they’ll fit?
But, you try them on over your own underwear... I try to explain. “It’s store policy!” she fumes.
Deciding the cute panties are not worth this degree of hipper-than-thou attitude, I ditch them and leave the store, trying to figure out where it all went wrong.
I could almost understand the girl’s confusion, perhaps, towards my proposed wish to try on a couple pairs of underwear. After all, she’d obviously only ever worn a size small her entire life, and therefore the concept of non-standard sizing, and of curves that don’t fit into every cut, was foreign to her.
I did have to refrain myself from hissing, “Wait till YOU see the other side of 25, honey!”
Like McLaren, I’m a little older, a little larger, a little less hip than the average sales clerk employed by trendy clothing boutiques. But I do think something other than lack of customer service skills is going on here. Something involving an age-related ignorance, by the young and sexy, to older, larger women, that is, size 8-to-10-ish 27 year olds such as I. As if, by ignoring us, the young and sexy can ignore the awful reality that they too, one day, will be older and possibly (the horror!) larger.
---
There’s a younger woman at work, let’s call her “Gina.” Gina is, I believe, 23 or 24, and very athletic.
In the three weeks we’ve been working in the same department, I’ve heard the specific details of Gina’s workout schedule almost daily. I’ve been privy to the details of Gina’s sore muscles the day after her workout. Gina has dropped by my desk for seemingly no other reason than to inform me that she is trying to get back into shape because, currently, Gina is a heifer. Which, in comparison, puts me in the anthropomorphic category of at least some type of pachyderm, if not an actual wooly mammoth. I would have said as much had I been able to pick my lower jaw up off the floor from Gina’s amazing lack of tact.
A few days ago, Gina attempts to open a dialogue with me surrounding her decision to buy a pair of skinny jeans. I’m trying to decide if I should get a pair of skinny jeans, Gina says to me. I rack my brain for a reason to get involved in this dialogue, or, alternately, a way to slink away by impersonating a filing cabinet. I mutter something about the wide-legged pant coming back into style. Gina proceeds to launch into an explanation involving the fact that she works out a lot, and therefore has large firm thighs, which don’t look nearly as good in skinny jeans as the stick-thin mannequins on which they are modeled. Sometimes I hate those mannequins! Gina says to me.
Yeah, fine, the girl’s got insecurities, and I should probably just be gentle to her. But
holy bejesus cellu-cakes, if I have to listen to any more of her insensitive bitching, I may just have to go Naomi Campbell on her ass.
In conclusion, you little waifers, be nice to your elders. Because one day, you’ll be us. And someone else is gonna be a gaunter, younger, skinnier version of you.
