Thursday, May 25, 2006
Bend, Harry, Bend
A bi-weekly visit over to Vitriolica Webb's Ite encounters this fine rendering of self-delusional behaviour, the wardrobe version. She is always a guaranteed laugh or, at a minimum, an a-hem.
On occassion, one of her drawings sparks some memories long dormant. Please excuse any perceived sexism on my part; it is unintentional. I simply couldn't resist one of Vit's poignant depictions.
In the mid-section of New Jersey, the overflowing stomach that is that state's propensity toward acquisition of non-essential material is a fine clothing store that I used to frequent when style and finances were running neck-and-neck toward zero. For anyone not familiar with the chain, minimal monies were wasted on display methodologies, packaging, carpeting, paint, and lighting. As long as the clothing was not on the floor, a successful merchandising effort was made. Imagine a person with 25-30 years of experience in the fish trade. Take that person, remove his fish, throw him bales of suits, shirts, ties, and sweaters and ask him to display his wares. The pescatorially leaning exposition is what you end up with. All that's missing is the fishy smell...if you're lucky. The shoehorns made available must have been made of some unidentifiable precious metal as the seemingly high value bestowed on them resulted in the store's management attaching 1/2 inch thick chains to them. It was a workout just lifting the shoehorn the few inches necessary to use it when sliding into the footwear.
Just like a fish market, the folks shopping here tend to be loud and rambunctious, offering all within earshot their opinion on "da look", "da style", and "da choice" (the latter word sounding quite garbled and chewed up as it's spit out). There's a lot of grabbing and tugging. You may be on one side of a table stacked with 6 feet of wares. A like-minded dedicated follower of fashion may be on the other. You both spot a must-have. It's located in mid-stack range. You give a tug. He gives a tug. Soon, you're each trying to pull each other through the stack. The bargains are there, you've bitten, and you're not letting go.
One of the pleasures of initial dates with my ever-loving wife was visiting this store. I needed clothes. She needed laughs. We usually walked out loaded to the gills with both. On one visit, some late September, just before the Florida-bound senior citizens migrated southwards, I was in need of some biz pants (the earlier version of casual-day kahaki). While I cruised the aisles chumming for sartorial splendour on the cheap, she sallied about in search of the human condition. Not too long before she encountered a husband-wife exchange.
She: Harry, da white shoooz, da white shoooz! Looking nice with your choices. Don't fo'get da belt. White. No, no vinyl. Stick with da ledder; it's natural and bends.
He: To hell with friggin' matching! Does it look right? Do I look comfortable (??)? Me, do I look like me?
She: Try 'em. Willya try 'em. You!? How can I tell if it's you if you ain't in 'em. Here. Here! Take a coupla pairs of these and those and thems ova' dere. And remember, Harry. Bend, Harry, Bend!!
Unaware of this exchange, I was already in the dressing room, which was a plywood sheeted 8 x 8, screwed together, unpainted, duck-tape-covering-holes-in-the-sheets "room" dropped in the middle of the Men's section. There were benches lining the inside walls, thousand of clothing hooks screwed in no particular order or height on the walls, and a well-worn bedsheet nailed at the top of a door-like hole cut in a jaggedy manner in one of the "room"'s walls. This was the only barrier between we men undressing and any dignity we still had.
Luckily for me, I was well aware of the trying-on process. No privacy in the dressing room meant a visit to this store required you wearing boxers. Furtive glances about showed a rash of neophytes in the room. Bikini u'wear, bulge specials, boat underwear (no pics available...but you know what I'm referring to..those once-white now grey, once semi-tight now sans-elastic underwear that almost need a belt to keep them from slipping to embarassing levels). There was going to be discomfort in this room today!
Harry comes in, dumps his choices on a bench, and proceeds to strip. I turn my head to avoid any eye contact. A shriek from outside the dressing room has us scurrying about.
She: Harry? Harry!??! Do you hear me, Harry? Do you have them on? Are you bending? Bend, Harry, Bend!
He: Alright already, I'm bending. I'm bending!
She: I don't hear you bending, Harry. Bend, Harry, Bend! O.K., that's it. I'm coming in, Harry. You've got to be bending in Florida, Harry.
And so she does. She comes in. She eyes us, one by one, clucking her tongue, giving appreciative head shakes to some, an eyes-upward glance at others, a return view at one or two of us. She then shudders and bears down on poor Harry. The rest of us put on whatever pants or shirts we were holding and jerk toward the billowing doorway, shoeless.
Bend, Harry, Bend! is all we hear as we beat the retreat, heads down. Our faces gradually lose their crimson color. I see my ever-loving wife. She's leaning on a teetering table of goods. Laughing. She shouts out,
Bend, Darko, Bend!
Comments:
<< Home Verging on Pertinence Just some more disposable thoughts clogging up the hinterlands
I am laughing my butt off!
Ooops, no, it's still there, but it might have been endangered for while from the guffaws....
What a story!
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Ooops, no, it's still there, but it might have been endangered for while from the guffaws....
What a story!
<< Home Verging on Pertinence Just some more disposable thoughts clogging up the hinterlands
