Retail Hell (14 page)

My eyes opened to the stunned face of Eric Cartman from
South
Park
— a plastic wind-up toy that sits on my desk. His molded face wanted to tell me something.

Seriously, dude, that was so fucked up. You are totally hella-screwed.

As I lifted my head from my keyboard pillow, I saw that the computer screen had gone dark.

Fucking nightmare.

Yet I could still hear ringing.

Because
it’s
not a dream.
It’s
your real phone, dumbass!

I jumped up out of my desk chair, fumbling for the phone, bleary eyed and dazed. Polly’s ghostly voice echoed in my head.

“
Yooooou
can’t
get away from me, Mr.
Freeman!”

Dazed, I pushed the talk button, and barely got “Hello?” out of my mouth.

“Freeman?” a woman’s voice asked, “It’s Tammy from Big Fancy. According to the schedule, you were supposed to have been here over an hour ago to open. Is everything okay?”

I looked at the black digital skull-shaped clock next to my bed. 10:20 a.m.

SHIT!!!

“Umm . . . Hi, Tammy. I’ve been really sick all night. I think it was food poisoning from Jack in the Box. I was just going to call. I’m better.”

Dead silence.

Tammy wasn’t falling for my lie about Jack.

Two-Tone knows
I’ve
overslept.
She’ll
fire my ass for sure!

“Judy has been in a meeting all morning. I’m watching your department because there is no one else to do it. Can you please get here as quickly as possible? I have my own work to do.”

“Yes, Tammy. I’m on my way out the door right now.”

“Oh, and by the way,” she said in her Sicky Sweet voice, “A customer named Polly called for you. She wants you to call her as soon as you get in. She said you were holding Fendi bags.”

I was too stunned to respond.

The Big Fancy had invaded my dreamscape and creative mind. Writing my Million-Dollar Screenplay was going to be a lot harder than I’d thought.

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, get me a JD on the rocks and make it a double.

“What’s a man doing in the purse department?”

She brought up the man thing and said the p-word all in one sentence.

A cranky old lady customer. The Big Fancy was crawling with them.

This curly-red-haired granny had on a white kitten-emblazoned sweatshirt, black poly stretch pants, and tan orthopedic shoes. Worst of all, her rumpled, misshapen handbag looked no better than a plastic supermarket bag.

I just sighed, taking in the question I’d heard a thousand times.

During one of those thousand times, I actually corrected an old hag’s usage of the p-word. This ended up getting me my first Big Fancy complaint letter,“ He told me that purses were no longer called purses. He corrected me and said they are called handbags. I do not appreciate his rudeness. I have been carrying a PURSE for fifty years! What does he know? You should not have men selling purses.”

Well, guess what, Grandma Moses, hold onto your Aqua Net,
’
cause the
future is here and men are selling handbags!

Of course Suzy Davis-Johnson took it upon herself to have a little chat with me about the complaint. Satan didn’t berate me or sentence me to the stockroom chain gang, but she strongly suggested that even though the word handbag is proper by industry standards, it was probably best if I did not correct customers who hadn’t adopted the term. In those cases, it was perfectly okay to use the p-word.

Well I hope you told the General, because
she’ll
shit green satchels if I say
the p-word!

Suzy assured me she’d tell Judy not to get upset if I said the p-word, but truth be told, I had sort of started to hate the word purse. It sounded so white trash and cheap. I was selling Coach, Kate Spade, and Gucci
handbags
. Ferragamo designed handbags, not purses. And Marc Jacobs does not introduce a fall purse collection — he introduces a fabulous fall handbag collection! Purses were back in the dinosaur times of dime stores, not the fashion free-for-all times of now.

Regarding Curly in the cat sweatshirt, I decided to let her have the truth straight up.

“A man in this department is no different than a man selling shoes, and I’m sorry to inform you, but we don’t call them purses anymore; they’re handbags.”

So there. Take that. Go complain to Satan.
I’m
sure
she’ll
massage your
ancient purse-
lovin’
ego.

The woman looked at me like she was going to smack me and then she burst out laughing.

“What an idiot I am,” she said, “You are so right. This isn’t the ’50s! I’m glad there are men selling purses — I mean handbags! Good for you!”

I didn’t know about the “Good for me” part (measuring men’s inseams would have been good for
me
), but the fact that she had opened her eyes to the times so quickly impressed me.

“I guess it’s as good a place as any to be working,” said Curly, “but don’t try and sell me another handbag. I need another handbag like I need a hole in the head. Got a closet full of ’em.”

“A woman can never own too many handbags,” I responded, having learned the line from Jules, who had told me it was a good come-back for the whole “closet full of handbags” excuse.

Jules had said it was up to me to convince women that changing handbags with their outfits made a statement about who they were and how they dressed. “An old, worn-out bag or one that’s outdated can completely ruin a gorgeous outfit,” she had said, adding, “And then the fashion police are called in.”

I guess this was a good philosophy to brainwash customers. If women who were addicted to handbags suddenly had the revelation they should never, ever, ever need to buy a new handbag so long as they lived, I’d be out of a job. Then Two-Tone Tammy would have sent my free-spirit personality somewhere really scary, like hosiery.

I was all for women owning too many handbags. It paid my rent (sometimes).

Hell, I’ve got too many ties.

And clothes. Way too many clothes.

“Do you have a pink handbag?” I asked Curly, who was eyeing an Isabella Fiore collection just in. They were quite sparkly works of art, constructed out of pink floral tapestry embellished with embroidery and crystal beading.

“Of course not, why would I want a pink handbag?” asked Curly, smoothing out her kitten sweatshirt.

This was my in. I knew what to do next.

I’ve sold so many pink handbags I could turn into a pink elephant, sprout some pink wings, and fly off in search of the land of pink vodka lemonade.

After being taught the technical terms in the world of handbags, over time I had learned a slew of other helpful selling techniques that got my customers to the register.

The first one was “bags and shoes don’t always have to match anymore.” Although it’s kind of a given in today’s fashion environment, many women still have the hardest time letting go of matchy-match dressing. This anything-goes attitude was awesome for handbag sales-people like us, giving us free rein to show the customer anything we wanted!

That purple fringe suede bag looks amazing with your Stuart Weitzman
rhinestone shoes!
It’s
high fashion!

Okay, so it may not have worked with everything.

Jules also taught me to point out every zipper, compartment, pocket, and doohickey on the bag. “You won’t remember every thing about every bag,” she said, “But you can PRETEND you do. Just touch everything — unzip the zippers, stick your hand in the pockets, undo the straps, whatever. Talk about features as if you already knew they were there.”

The bag blind leading the bag blind!

She also helped me get over my aversion to an important visual method to selling handbags.

Modeling the way a bag is worn.

At first I was like, no fuckin’ way am I putting a woman’s hand-bag on my shoulder! But Jules quickly pointed out that men wear backpacks and messenger bags instead of briefcases. My balls slowly grew back to regular size, but I still felt weird modeling a Juicy Couture slouchy hobo covered in dangling pompoms and heart-shaped charms.

The women, however, loved it.

Seeing a man emasculate himself was often what closed a sale!

The other handbag-selling problem I had to conquer was inviting customers to try their things inside a style they were considering. Marsha told me this was a major weapon in the fight against having bags returned for not adequately holding everything.

“Hon, you’re selling them now,” she said. “Your grandma would understand.”

I’ve now seen the insides of so many handbags, I could write a book about the psychological and emotional connection women have to the crap they carry around with them all day.

Sorry, Grandma!
Don’t
kill me. They made me go inside
women’s
purses,
er, I mean handbags.

As my handbag comfort and confidence grew, I developed a few selling tricks of my own. With greedy sharks like Douche and Tiffany swimming alongside me in the Jungle, making sales was do or die. So I resorted to going totally over the top:

“That bag is
fabulous
! SO hot! If I were a woman, I’d wear it myself!”

“I have to say the aubergine Coach carryall really compliments your hair color.”

“Did you know the Marc Jacobs Sophia was named after director Sophia Coppola?”

“That Isabella Fiore pirate bag will stop traffic! Men will comment and women will be jealous!”

“My friend’s Kate Spade messenger bag got totally soaked on the Jurassic Park water ride at Universal Studios and it dried perfectly! No stains at all! Completely clean!”

“This Juicy Couture bowler just came in this morning. We already sold three. It’s the last one!”

“Suitcase bags are all the rage. It doesn’t matter what size you are or how little you carry!”

“Last night on
Access Hollywood
, Gwyneth Paltrow had on that very same grass green hobo! It’s SO unbelievably hot!”

Most of my phrases I pulled directly out of my ass. Some were true, some not. But one of my most favorite handbag-selling lines I learned from the iconic handbag designer Kate Spade.

Well, she didn’t teach me personally, but it would have been really cool if she had.

“Kate says that a woman should use a bag to accessorize her outfit like a man does with his tie.”

This magical handbag-selling anecdote from Kate often held the key to a customer’s buying a bright yellow satchel
and
a hot pink clutch!

“See, it’s like what I’ve done. I’m wearing a black suit, but I have on this festive red tie with Hershey’s Kisses all over it. Doesn’t it just add something to my all-black look? I don’t look so menacing now, do I?”

My newly acquired selling skills had me quizzing customers like I was Anderson Cooper on a mission to end world handbag aggravation for women everywhere. Sloped shoulders, weak backs, wrists with carpal tunnel — you name the ailment, I found the handbag. I helped women accessorize for weddings, business meetings, luncheons, concerts, and dates. I assisted them in deciding on bags for carrying their workout clothes, medical books, kid’s toys, laptops, carpet samples — whatever their heart’s desire! I even located bags big enough to tote their dogs and cats.

After romancing hundreds into carrying striped Kate Spade, signature Coach, trendy Isabella Fiore, bold Marc Jacobs, and classic Fer-ragamo, the transformation happened.

I became Queer-Eye Handbag Guy.

And the women of The Big Fancy ate it up.

My
free-spirited personality
, cool ties, and hip handbag lingo set me apart.

I found myself saying the words “fabulous” and “gorgeous,” modeling handbags on my shoulders, quoting famous designers, and rummaging around in bags against Grandma’s wishes.

I had my own stack of Big Fancy business cards that said
Freeman
Hall, Handbag Sales Associate
, and within a short time, women started coming into the department and asking for me.

If they didn’t know my name, they’d ask, “Is that blond guy here?” followed by a whispered, “You know who I mean, I think he’s gay.”

Whenever Jules mentioned this, she’d glow like I was her third child. “I remember when you thought a cross-body messenger was a buff UPS driver!”

Marsha was also like a proud mother: “You sell handbags better than I do!”

And Cammie loved to tag-team customers with me. She’d model for my customers, and in return, I gave her customers Queer-Eye Handbag Guy punditry: “That bag is so unbelievably hot! It will give you a whole new edgy look!”

I even had one customer tell me every time she got a compliment on her handbag, she’d reply “I got it from Freeman!” Then the complimenting person would say, “Freeman? Is that a new boutique on Montana Street?” My customer would reply, “FREEMAN AT THE BIG FANCY! Let me give you one of his cards.”