The Other Day: Sizing up a complaint about clothes shopping
Tuesday, November 7, 2006 7:09 AM PST
By Janine Manny, columnist
Printable version
E-mail this articleA woman named Marcia, from Nordstrom, left a message on my home answering machine the other day.
She called to say that the Nordstrom's Rack at the Tanasbourne Town Center in Beaverton, Ore., is a having a big shoe sale.
She didn't mean a big sale on shoes.
She meant a sale on big shoes. For people with big feet.
So, of course, she called me.
I'm sure the Large-Size Shoe Event at the Rack is a fine sale, but I'm not sure how to feel about the phone call. How does Marcia know I have big feet?
I have a Nordstrom credit card and I do buy shoes at the Rack. A lot of shoes. Size 11 shoes.
So I guess it was only a matter of time before the store started tracking my purchases for targeted advertising.
What's next? Is Safeway going to use my club card information to call and tell me there is a shipment of Merlot on the way? Hey, everyone knows that it makes sense to buy six bottles at one time for the 10 percent savings.
I decided to call Marcia at the Rack.
I got the store manager, who said Nordstrom does not track purchases by credit card. She said that the only way I would have received a phone call is if I filled out a form saying that I wanted to hear about Large-Size Shoe Events.
I don't recall doing that, but I'm sure she's right. I would definitely sign up for anything to do with shoe sales. In fact, I plan to go to this one, now that I've been personally invited.
However, Marcia's phone call brought up a memory I had hoped was blocked forever.
I was shopping at The Bon (before it was Macy's) for a Christmas present for my sister-in-law. She wears a size 4 petite. Yeah, I hate her, too.
To be fair, I should point out that this was The Bon in Bend, Ore., not the one at Three Rivers Mall.
Anyway, I was happily sorting through itty-bitty clothes when a saleswoman approached me.
"Excuse me," she whispered. "Do you realize you are in the petite section?"
Ouch.
It's possible that she thought she was being helpful. Maybe she'd had customers flip out after finding a pair of size 2 extra short slacks they love, only to discover they don't come in a size 14 extra tall.
I didn't take it that way.
"Thank you for pointing out that I could not possibly be shopping for myself in the petite section," I said. "Did it occur to you that I might be shopping for someone else, and that I'm not so stupid that I don't know this is the petite section?"
I went shopping with my sister-in-law once. She's actually not my sister-in-law anymore, just a little tiny friend.
"Oh darn," she said when she couldn't find what she wanted. "The size 4 petites are always gone first."
Again, I did not react well.
"That's because people like ME come in first and buy FOUR size 4 outfits and sew them together to make ONE!" I said.
Maybe clothes shopping is tough no matter what size you wear. The ladies at the YMCA often tell me how lucky I am to be tall. When they buy pants, they have to cut six or eight inches off and hem them up.
"I have to take off so much I could make a pair of shorts with what's left over," Allie Anderson of Longview told me. Allie is 83 years old and the top of her head doesn't quite reach my shoulder.
I tried to explain at least she has an option. When pants are too short, the only alteration available is to add on. Maybe we should shop together and buy the same pants. What she cuts off hers, I can add on to mine.
Sounds like a road trip, Allie. I hear there is a BIG sale at Nordstrom's Rack.
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