Letters to Holly

Friday, June 24

Retelling Retailing

I wonder sometimes if I'm ignored by so many store associates because they consider me too old to shop there. I hovered in American Eagle for about ten minutes, scouring the shelves for a shirt I saw on a mannequin. Finding only the one of those shirts in XXL (which I could use as a bedspread), I scanned the barcode with my scifi-future-magic phone and took pictures of the sales tag to track it down on the store's website. I can't believe none of the three associates who I spied failed to notice me.

When I worked retail, and granted this was literally decades ago, I preferred to help this kind of shopper -- someone who was actively, if not aggressively, looking. They were engaged. They knew what they wanted. They were the highlight of my dreary day, and the nightmare was type of shopper who walks into my department and stops dead still, staring blankly at the back wall of the store as if God will use the Force to levitate what they want through the very air and at their feet. That guy only knows what he doesn't want and can in no way articulate what they came to buy. That guy will devour hours of your time and complain the whole time.

I bought a similar shirt in a different color when I remembered I already had a blue striped shirt from AE. And much to my surprise I bought it a size smaller than I expected. I tried on a medium and a small, and the small is the better fit. Men's clothes used to be reliably consistent. Now I gotta treat every item of clothing like jeans.

Still, I got a shirt that looks decent during my lunch break. I think I shopped well.

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My Mom watched the sidekick yesterday, and today he is visiting the daycare for a few hours. He failed to sleep through the night, and he was oddly difficult to put down after supper. Maybe his system's still frizzed from cold medication.
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Your Sister and a coworker volunteered me to take her son to see Green Lantern this weekend. He's apparently dying to see it. I asked this morning if it's OK to catch a 2D viewing, and he said he wouldn't care. Good. I can't see the 3D stuff. To me, it looks like the last ten minutes of 2001.

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Your Sister is dismayed to learn that the transfer of power at the school is a muddle. She was asked to coordinate schedules for next year by the outgoing principal. Not only can't schedules be made until the school hires replacement teachers, she's not the person who should be doing this; the current department chair is. And the outgoing principal will have no oversight on whatever schedule is made. We suspect he asked Your Sister because she happened to be at the school yesterday, and making the request allowed him to check an item off his out-the-door to-do list. She's meeting Sunday with some teachers to straighten this mess out.

Moving Picture of the Day
The new trailer for the Captain America movie. It continues to look a little flat -- as in "those sets look like backlots" -- but the low-budget retro style harkens back to Rocketeer and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Hopefully it won't be as middling as The Shadow and Phantom. Those films couldn't elevate themselves beyond the stifling doldrums of b-movie cliches. I think Marvel will be happy if it makes $70 million, just as long as it properly prepares audiences for next year's giant Avengers film.

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