Retail Hell (24 page)

First the front.

Then the left side.

Then the right side.

This would be normal for any woman trying on a handbag, except that Picky Bitch Beaumont did it no less than twenty times, constantly rotating like a jewelry box doll and tilting her head while humph-humphing and smack-smack-smacking.

Calling Dr. Wither-Away! Is there a surgeon in the house? Your Picky
Bitch wife has gone full-bore fanatically finicky, AKA crazy. I hope you have
psychiatric credentials. She also needs to see a good neurologist about all the
grunting and smacking.

More insanity would ensue when she started to complain about how the handbags weren’t living up to her expectations.

“What was Kate Spade thinking? The inside zipper pocket is too small.”

“I’ve never liked the way DKNY does their shoulder straps.”

“The stitching on this Kenneth Cole is shoddy.”

“Dooney & Bourke should have never put a multicolored rainbow zipper on this bag, it looks ridiculously absurd. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing this!”

When she went on a rampage, all I could do was pet her.

“You are absolutely right, Mrs. Beaumont. I couldn’t agree more. I think the zipper ruined the look. They must have blind people with bad taste designing for them.”

One time she called me to complain about the condition of her four-year-old Gucci shoulder tote when she picked it up at our store after we’d repaired a loose thread for free. I had been at lunch when she came in to pick up the repair. As soon as I returned, the phone rang.

“Hello Freeman, it’s Mrs. Beaumont.”

“Hi, Mrs. Beaumont.”

“I picked up my Gucci bag today, and I must tell you, I am not pleased at all.”

“Sorry to hear that, what’s the problem?”

“There is no stuffing inside.”

“I don’t think it had stuffing when you brought it in, did it?”

“No, Freeman, it did not, BECAUSE I WAS USING IT. THAT’S WHEN I NOTICED THE LOOSE THREAD,” she said, her voice agitated.

Tread lightly, dude. Mrs. Beaumont must have a zit today or something.

“The repair service doesn’t put stuffing inside the bags when they send them back,” I replied.

“Well, I don’t know why NOT,” she said, sounding miffed, “They should. My beautiful Gucci handbag looked absolutely atrocious! It was smashed and flattened and wrapped in plastic.”

“The plastic is to protect it.”

“I want stuffing.”

“Umm . . . no problem, Mrs. Beaumont. Just come in, and we’ll give you stuffing.”

“What time are you working till?”

“Anyone can get you the stuffing. It doesn’t matter if I’m here or not.”

“I want you to get it, and I want Gucci stuffing.”

“There is no such thing as Gucci stuffing.”

“Humph.”

Silence before the storm.

Here it comes. Picky Bitch Rampage.

“Freeman, you are completely incorrect. You of all people should know what’s inside your handbags. Coach has a special stuffing! Juicy Couture has a special stuffing! Dooney & Bourke have a special stuffing! AND SO DOES GUCCI. I WANT GUCCI STUFFING!”

After her speech, I realized she was partially correct. Some of the handbag designers do have logo-printed tissue used as stuffing in their bags, notably Coach and Juicy Couture.

But for the life of me I could not remember what Gucci stuffing looked like.

However, the flaw in her petty request is that not
all
handbag designers make logo stuffing. Most of them use 100 percent Grade-A recycled tissue and paper.

“Sure, Mrs. Beaumont. No problem. When do you want to come in?”

“I need to take care of this right away. I’ll be there in an hour.”

Not a minute late, Mrs. Beaumont showed up with her flat, lifeless Gucci shoulder tote in its protective dust cover. Rather than have the stuffing waiting for her, I decided to empty out a brand-new Gucci bag right in front of her so she would know the stuffing was indeed Gucci brand, even though it appeared to be regular tissue.

“See! It’s a different color!” she said with a “Humph,” and a smack-smack-smack.

I don’t know what the fuck she was talking about.

The stuffing was a mix of white tissue and grayish heavy-duty paper, the same shit inside half the bags in our department. I let the desire to prove I was right pass. Mrs. Beaumont would just find a way to discredit my findings. I bestowed her with a shit-pleasing retail smile.

“Now your Gucci bag will be well preserved.”

I watched as she put the old, newly stuffed Gucci in its protective dust cover and then placed it back inside her shopping bag.

Then she put on bright green reading glasses, which matched her blouse.

“Since I’ve had to come back to your store I might as well start looking for a bag to match a St. John dress I’m wearing to the gala dinner for my husband’s surgical conference in Miami. Show me everything you have in black.”

My head started to pound.

I hoped it wouldn’t be long before she demanded I get one from the back, because hidden in my box of business cards on my hold shelf in the stockroom was half of a Xanax in case of an emergency. A raving Picky Bitch certainly qualified as an emergency.

Humph-humph. Smack-smack-smack.

For centuries, one of the most notoriously draining customers in Retail Hell has come to earn the title Bloodsucker. No matter what type of store you work at or shop in, you’ve probably encountered one of these coma-inducing freaks wreaking havoc on everyone around them.

Bloodsuckers have no need for fangs.

One look, movement, or word out of their mouth, and the energy vacuum revs into full blast. The poor Retail Slave waiting on them goes pale, then limp, completely bled dry, falling into a helpless heap of exhaustion in need of B-12 shots and a keg of beer.

The Big Fancy was teeming with Bloodsuckers.

The Two Virginias were considered Bloodsuckers with their nonstop lobotomizing chatter.

Sometimes Shoposaurus Carnotaurus Lorraine Goldberg could turn into a terrible Bloodsucker as she stopped at nothing to obtain three extra pairs of Ferragamo shoes in orange. And more often than not, I’d have absolutely no blood left after waiting on Mrs. Beamount.

But the most feared Bloodsucker in all of The Big Fancy was Marguerite Bavaro.

The Count Dracula of customers.

Lestat’s ugly sister.

The love child of Vampira and Barlow.

The Vampire Bavaro looked so frightening, she could raise the dead and make them run away. She had gnarly black-widow hair, usually crammed under a baseball cap or visor (red or blue), and bulging, buglike eyes with dilated black pupils sticking out from a gaunt face that had seen numerous skin diseases. Sometimes it was patchy and sickly, sometimes it was speckled with tiny reddish black bumps. Bavaro moved her bony body in slow, mummified motion, and when those bulbous black eyes caught you, it felt like they were hypnotizing you into a trance that would make you do whatever evil bidding she commanded.

Every time the Vampire Bavaro appeared out of thin air, I wanted to scream.

But screaming on the sales floor at Big Fancy was frowned upon.

Seeing Bavaro’s horrific face wasn’t the only thing that made me want to scream; it was knowing she was about to open her mouth and start speaking.

“JEFFERSON!” she would say, sounding like Gloria Swanson from
Sunset Boulevard
, “You must help me! Everything is a God-awful mess. It needs to be taken care of right away. I’m not at all pleased with what’s going on here, Jefferson.”

The Vampire Bavaro never got my name right. It was always Jefferson, no matter how many times I corrected her.

“Jefferson, I don’t understand how this bag works.”

“Jefferson, you wouldn’t lie to me about this, would you?”

“Jefferson, everything is a God-awful mess, I need you to correct it.”

Marguerite Bavaro also refused to acknowledge the correct names of everyone else in the Handbag Jungle. She called Marsha Margo, Tiffany Brittany, and Jules Debbie (WTF? Doesn’t even rhyme). Cammie was known as, “That blond girl I dislike immensely”; Douche was, “That foreign woman”; Marci, “That chatty girl”; and Judy was simply “The Manager.”

I couldn’t help but think she played games with our names on purpose.

If I wasn’t so scared of her, I’d have changed her name and called her Bloodsucking Bitch.

The Vampire Bavaro was an equal-opportunity Bloodsucker. Exclusive to no one, she roped us all into her brain-twisting, energy-draining dramas. The unlucky person who answered the phone or was standing in her path when she appeared was the victim du jour.

“Jefferson! Everything is a God-awful mess,” she’d whine to me over the phone, “This needs to be taken care of immediately! The last person I spoke to — that blond girl I dislike immensely — did not call me back. Debbie has a Marc Jacobs on hold that Margo was supposed to get me but never did because the one I bought from that foreign woman has a scratch, and the one Brittney has on hold is not the right color, but I may be interested in it, and that chatty girl was supposed to get me one from another store but I haven’t heard from her either. Your manager also said I could have a discount on the scratched one, so I want the one that Debbie has, but I also want another one, and there are two other handbags I want to ask you about.”

I almost collapsed from exhaustion just listening to her on the phone.

Given the way the Vampire Bavaro looked, I’d much rather deal with her over the phone rather than in person. When she’d appear out of nowhere like a B-movie ghoul, it totally creeped me out.

“Jefferson, I’m glad you are here,” she’d moan as I accidentally ran into her on my way out of the stockroom, “Everything is a God-awful mess. I don’t want that foreign woman helping me. I wish to converse with someone who can clearly speak English. I’ve had a horrible day. I’m having an allergic reaction to my medication and I’m in no mood.”

Neither am I. The blood bank is dry. Maybe you should just leave now
and spare us all.

Besides “everything being a God-awful mess” with whatever ongoing handbag situation she had created, there was always a black cloud of tragedy hanging over Marguerite’s head.

“Please extend my hold,” she’d say, “I can’t come in right now; the plumbing in my house is being repaired, and I can’t leave the workmen alone. It’s going to be a three-day job and then I’m having the roof repaired from the tree that fell on it last week during the storm. I don’t know when I’ll be in.”

Or, “I need to return this bag. My sister just fell and broke both her legs. I want to take care of the return now because I won’t be home for a while. I’ll need to be a nurse for my sister.”

Or, “I was in a car accident three days ago with a cable TV van and my body hasn’t been the same. It was their fault, of course, and if I suffer any further medical problems they
will
be paying for it.”

The Vampire Bavaro wasn’t kidding when she mentioned any kind of further medical problems.

There was always something wrong with her, and she had no qualms in letting us know all about it: “The Manager said I could have the discount today even though the sale is over. I couldn’t come in yesterday because I was ill. I’m on ten medications. I’ve got lupus, diabetes, osteoporosis, carpal tunnel, arthritis, clinical depression, high blood pressure, psoriasis, hay fever, and dry mouth.”

Shouldn’t
she be dead with all that?

Besides being one of the worst Bloodsuckers ever, Marguerite Bavaro was also shady.

Nasty-Ass Thief shady.

She was always exchanging and returning with no receipts or with torn receipts and trying to get deep price adjustments on things by telling lies about when she bought them, claiming they were damaged, or producing coupons from other stores that were either expired or not the right coupon.

One time Judy denied her a return on a Kenneth Cole hobo because the price ticket she had with it wasn’t even from our store. It was the correct price and had Cole’s name on it, but another store’s logo was stamped across the top.

“I know I bought it here,” The Vampire Bavaro said, “and I’m not leaving until you give me the refund on this bag. What are you saying? That I stole it? My husband is a police officer and he’s not going to be happy when I tell him that you accused me of stealing.”

We all knew her husband was a police officer because she constantly reminded us, as if it was some kind of name-dropping power tool she had to use. None of us could understand why anyone would be married to her in the first place, let alone a cop. We all thought it was a lie.

“No one has accused you of stealing,” said Judy, becoming frustrated, “I’m only saying that the ticket to the bag is not from our store.”

“Then I’ll take the ticket,” said Bavaro, snatching it from Judy’s hand. “Now you can credit it to my account without a ticket. Unless, of course, you’d like me to go upstairs and talk to Suzy Davis-Johnson about it?”

Judy wouldn’t like that at all. Satan disliked the Vampire Bavaro almost as much as we did because she was always putting out numerous Bavaro fires all over the store and giving her thousands of dollars back in questionable returns. Because Marguerite bought as much as she returned, Suzy commanded that we give her whatever she wanted in the name of customer service.