Retail Hell (15 page)

The experience for Curly, with her kitty sweatshirt, stretch pants, and hideous shoes, was no different. After romancing her on the artistic look of the Fiore, I modeled it, showed her the features, had her try her stuff in it, and told her it was featured in
Vogue
. I guided her into taking it for a test drive in front of the floor mirror, and told her it was wearable art, a collector’s item.

Curly was sold. Within fifteen minutes she was handing me her Visa card.

It also helped that I was wearing one of my silly ties that happened to have Garfield the cat on it. When I fed her Kate’s awesome philosophy about a woman wearing her handbag like a man wears a tie, Curly took a gander at Garfield, and it hit her where she lived.

Not only did she buy the Fiore bag, but I convinced her it was so fabulous she should ditch her black trash bag and put her things in the Fiore and wear it out!

There have been many customers of Queer-Eye Handbag Guy who walked into The Big Fancy as ugly purse-wearin’ frumps but left as gorgeous handbag-carryin’ fashionistas!

And Curly was one of them.

Not ten minutes had passed when Curly returned, glowing and full of life. She looked ten years younger. Was this a new selling tactic for me to explore?

Forget Botox! This bag will make you look
younger —
and without
needles!

“I was just leaving the store,” Curly said excitedly, “But I had to come back and tell you a woman just stopped me in Cosmetics and told me my handbag was stunning! That has never happened to me before. Thank you so much! I sent her to you. I hope you have another one!”

I did, and I was ready for her.

It was a scene repeated countless times, as I ended up outfitting the shoulders of thousands of women all over Southern California and beyond. With all this excitement surrounding my sales, you’d think I’d become rich or snagged my own reality TV show on Bravo.

Move over Carson Kressley;
there’s
a new Queer-Eye in town!

But the dark side of selling handbags kept anything like that from happening.

Being adored at The Big Fancy came at a price.

Shopping till you drop is old-school, Shopaholics are
so
ten years ago, and Shopzillas have already used up their five minutes of fame, thanks to an overblown website whose logo is a shopping cart with fire coming out of its ass.

But let me introduce the Shoposaurus Carnotaurus.

Hungry to shop and hungry to buy, they show up with insatiable appetites capable of devouring piles of merchandise without ever returning a single thing (which is a major difference from Shopaholics). For commissioned Retail Slaves, the Shoposaurus Carnotaurus is a wet dream come true.

And lucky for me, I had caught the biggest, most badass one of them all.

When I first saw the towering 6'2" fifty-something woman (who looked like a thin version of Tracy Turnblad’s mother, Edna, in the movie
Hairspray
) brutally interrogating handbags on the clearance table, the first thought that came to my mind was . . . tranny.

That woman has to be a transvestite. Or a tranny in training. Or a man
in drag.

She had chestnut-dyed bouffant hair in sort of a ’50s Jackie O style and a pasty, green-eyed face sporting painted brown eyebrows and reddish-orange lips. Her attire was dressy: a colorful Mondrian print silk blouse, navy stretch wool slacks, and expensive navy Ferragamo leather shoes with grosgrain bows. If it hadn’t been for a new Fendi signature satchel dangling from her forearm, I’d have never gone near her.

The ’50s Time-Warp Tranny looked anything but friendly. As it was, the girls I was selling alongside that day — Tiffany, Marsha, Marci, and Douche — were all avoiding her like they knew a deadly secret. None of them approached Time-Warp Tranny, even though The Big Fancy maintained a thirty-second-greeting rule toward all customers, regardless of how they look. Did the girls know something I didn’t? Was this giant woman a psycho or bloodsucker? Maybe they were just freaked out by her scary white basketball-player-in-drag look. Nevertheless, when I spied that Fendi signature satchel, I figured she might just have a designer fetish. I hadn’t sold much all day, and even if Time-Warp Tranny turned out to be an annoying sale shopper and bought something on sale, it was better than nothing. I needed to get my volume up.

As I approached her, I noticed that although she was built like a linebacker and her nose and mouth were huge in a masculine way, she had no Adam’s apple and her hands were not as large as a man’s. The woman indecently groping the sale bags wasn’t a tranny or a man in drag at all. She just had a major case of the uglies.

I made my move, positioning myself directly across from her at the clearance table.

“Hi! How are you this afternoon?” I inquired.

Time-Warp Tranny didn’t even look at me.

She was too busy fondling the insides of a gold croc-embossed Michael Kors tote.

“I can’t find the fucking price. Where is the motherfucking cock-sucking price tag on this fucking whore? GODDAMN IT! I hate it when this fucking bullshit happens. Jesus fucking Christ!”

Not in my wildest dreams would I ever have expected to hear the word fuck drop from this conservative-looking lady’s mouth, let alone
cocksucker
.

Looks like Edna Turnblad has a potty mouth! My kind of woman!

I spied the tag dangling from the bottom of the strap and couldn’t resist communicating back in her language: “The motherfucking price tag is right there on the strap.”

If I got in trouble for saying that, the plan was to point a finger and say, “She said it first!” But I never got in trouble.

That was how I met Lorraine Goldberg, my very own Shoposaurus Carnotaurus. What happened next blew me away. The perfect storm hit: a combination of my Angels training, my Queer-Eye persona, and her hunger to buy.

I decided to give Lorraine the full tour and go over every designer and every bag: new and old, on sale and regular price, casual and dressy, trendy and classic. I covered it all.

After
motherfucking
and
cocksucking
many bags and wallets, Lorraine had fallen in love with a bunch of brands: Coach, Kate Spade, Juicy Couture, L.A.M.B., Michael Kors, and Marc Jacobs.

While she looked at a new quilted Marc Jacobs satchel, a customer unknowingly picked up the Michael Kors tote Lorraine had momentarily set down.

Lorraine revealed big, white-yellow, tobacco-stained teeth, threatening to eat the world as she roared, “DON’T YOU DARE FUCKING TOUCH THAT! IT’S MINE! THAT FUCKING MICHAEL KORS BAG IS MINE, BITCH!”

The woman ran off like a scared little bunny rabbit while Lorraine turned to me and said:

“Don’t let anyone touch any of my fucking bags. I HATE it when people touch my fucking shit. I was here first. ALL THESE MOTHERFUCKING BAGS ARE MINE, GODDAMN IT!”

It was an outburst that caused everyone in the department to gawk and stare. And I didn’t care. I thought it was hilarious. She swore like a truck driver, and nobody would say shit because she was spending $8,890.

That’s right. $8,890.

Marsha congratulated me, Tiffany helped me pack everything up (Lorraine demanded gift boxes to store all her bags in), Marci couldn’t stop talking about who has that kind of money for handbags, and the best part was Douche’s sneer with raised eyebrows. She was jealous as hell, and I loved it!

I had bagged my own Shoposaurus Carnotaurus!
Take that, Douche!

In a few short days Lorraine and I were on a first-name basis. She called me on the phone and said, “Freeman, I want another fucking Juicy Couture cherry tote. Find me one in perfect condition!” As the fucks and cocksuckers flew, Lorraine ordered things over the phone and then dutifully came in to pick them up on Saturdays, smelling of cigarettes and Chanel No. 5 perfume after spending the morning in the “beauty parlor,” as she called it.

I always knew when my freshly coiffed, tobacco-perfumed Shoposaurus was about to arrive, because she’d give me her ETA the day before. Moments before her big entrance, I’d be overcome with a sense that Lorraine was nearby. It would play out in my head like the scene in
Jurassic Park
when the water in the plastic cup starts to ripple right before the T-Rex stomps out of the jungle.

But before I actually saw my Shoposaurus Carnotaurus, I could hear her ear-scraping wail from fifty feet away. She sounded like a champion hog caller, her voice booming from the aisle:

“FRAAAYMAN! FRAYMAN! FRAYMAN! FRAAAYMAN!”

Heads turned. Customers stopped shopping. Salespeople stopped selling. A handbag fell over.

“What was that?” said a Customer I was helping one Saturday.

“It’s my personal customer calling for me.”

The customer wrinkled her nose. “Does she always yell out your name like that?”

“It’s her way of announcing she’s arrived.”

“Where is she yelling from? I don’t even see her?”

Seconds later Lorraine loomed behind her, looking wild-eyed and shampoo-fresh. “FRAYMAN! I’M HERE! I’VE JUST COME FROM THE BEAUTY PARLOR! I WANT MY FUCKING FERRAGAMOS! I HOPE THOSE COCKSUCKERS IN THE SHOE DEPARTMENT DIDN’T TOUCH THEM. I’LL BE FUCKING PISSED IF THEY DID!”

Lorraine began to eye my customer and the new L.A.M.B. satchel she was looking at.

“Is that L.A.M.B. bag new?” she cooed, “I ADORE Gwen Stefani’s bags! Frayman, why didn’t you tell me there were new L.A.M.B.s? I told you I collect them!”

“We just put them out,” I replied, “I was going to show them to you first thing.”

“Get me a new one out of the back!”

“We only got one of each, but I can always call another store if you want.”

Lorraine’s full focus turned to the L.A.M.B. She stared at the bag as if she wanted to eat it or would die without it. When she set her mind to devouring something in the store, whether it was a fancy blouse, Ferragamo shoes, or another handbag, she stopped at nothing until it was going home with her.

The other customer stared back, fearful and completely unnerved: “I don’t want this. You can help her, I’m gonna look around some more.”

“I WANT IT THEN!” howled Lorraine, “I’M NEXT IN LINE, YOU HAVE TO LET ME HAVE IT. I’M FUCKING NEXT IN LINE, GODDAMN IT!”

The rattled woman huffed, handed it to her, and walked off.

“Fucking slutty bitch,” Lorraine whispered to me. “She wasn’t gonna buy shit anyway. Fucking Lookie-Loo cocksucker.”

Lorraine was right.

I’d been helping the lady for twenty minutes with no sale or interest. She was a total Lookie-Loo.

“I’m taking this motherfucker,” said Lorraine, “That little cock-sucker can’t have it back. This little L.A.M.B. is mine now. Hold on to it, and don’t fucking let go of it. And I want a goddamn wallet. You know I have to have a fucking wallet to match!”

I thanked my lucky retail stars.

The Shoposaurus had run off the Lookie-Loo.

I loved riding on the back of the most powerful animal in the Handbag Jungle.

When Lorraine came in to pick up merchandise, it typically went like this: “Hi Lorraine!” I’d say with my shit-pleasing retail smile, “I got your navy Ferragamo shoes.”

“All THREE pairs? I wanted THREE pairs in navy,” she’d respond, as Eau de Goldberg (powder plus ashtray) wafted over me.

Lorraine was constantly worried about things she loved being discontinued. She feared waking up one morning in the future and discovering there was no replacement for her worn, scratched-up, beloved Ferragamos in navy. So she took on the Costco approach and bought in bulk. Even when we’re talking Ferragamo shoes at $350 a pair. It’s a very Shoposaurus Carnotaurus thing to do.

“Yes, Lorraine! All three pairs are here!” I’d announce excitedly, “I’ve got them on hold in the shoe department. The manager said they just came in.”

“FRAAAAAYMAN!!!” she’d bawl at me, “SONOFABITCH! I don’t want those fucking asshole cocksuckers touching my Ferragamos with their filthy fucking fingers! And you know how those idiot bastards are in the shoe department; what doesn’t get lost gets stolen. FRAYMAN! GO GET MY FUCKING FERRAGAMOS OUT OF THERE!”

Whenever Lorraine got slightly riled up, sounding like she was born in a battleship on the high seas during wartime, I did my best to put out her fire, “Cool your jets, Lorraine, Your fucking Ferragamos are fine.”

I quickly learned early on that when Lorraine mouthed off, it wasn’t directed at me personally; it was only her tribal way of communicating. The words that flowed from her massive hot-lava mouth just happened to be football locker room style.

Her favorite potty-mouth phrase was “fucking asshole cock-sucker.” Months after meeting Lorraine Goldberg, I wondered how this could be. She wore Ferragamo shoes with bows on them, bought Fendi handbags, and went to the beauty parlor every Saturday to pouf up her hair. How could a woman who looks like this actually use the word cocksucker in a sentence?

Why was everyone a fucking asshole cocksucker?

An insight into this eccentricity of Lorraine’s revealed itself gradually as I began to know a little bit more about her background over the years. Lorraine had never been married or had a boyfriend
or
girlfriend
that I’ve ever known of (and believe me, I prodded), so it was quite possible Lorraine Goldberg might just have been a fifty-year-old virgin. Her only companion was a nine-year-old French poodle named Mitzy.