After having eyed this black suede motorcycle jacket on Acne’s Web site for about two weeks, I had a showdown with a total stranger over it during a shopping trip to Browns. It all began when I called the store and found out that they only had one left in stock.
“I’ll take it. I’m coming over right now,” I told the sales girl on the phone.
But just as I was about to hang up in victory she stopped me: “I just have to call another customer who put the jacket on hold this morning to see if she actually wants to buy it.”
I protested that I was right around the corner from the store, with wallet in hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll call you right back,” she assured me. I decided to take matters into my own hands and just show up at the store and “jack” my jacket. Let me interrupt the story right here and establish that I’m not one of those wild-eyed, obsessive shoppers who hoard all of the shoes at a sample sale. And despite what I do for a living, I’m not even someone who particularly enjoys talking about shopping (at a dinner party, I’d rather talk about anything else, honestly.) But something about this jacket brought out the crazy in me. (And for some reason, I feel the need to share all of this with you.)
I arrived to find the other shopper standing at the register with my soon-to-be purchase!
“She’s trying to decide whether or not she wants to buy it. I think it’s yours,” a second salesgirl whispered to me with a wink as I gave my rival the stink eye. The blasted woman ended up purchasing the jacket. But my deus ex machina came in the form of a second version in emerald green (it turns out Browns’ actually had two left, not one.) It turns out the color suits me better anyway.
