By Teresa H.
Some members may consider dear old Teresaa a bit of a grouch from her replies to some of the posts but I’m far from that in fact I have a wicked sense of humour. As a child mischief was never far away in fact I haven’t lost that naughty streak at times. To start the New Year I thought it might be fun to recall stories from your outings or whatever. I have many and most come from the period when shopping in male mode. Shoes appear to offer the most fun stories but I’ll kick off with one from a UK store called British Home Stores (BHS), now sadly closed. It was a great shop for CDers because you could buy most items at reasonable cost, which probably makes sense to most of us. They sold everyday stockings in packs of three in four shades and three sizes, I usually had all four colours stashed in a medium size. The problem was the display racks contained all the hosiery items, so the choices of tights were mixed in with stockings and knee-highs etc. I was so busy searching through the racks and generally wrecking the whole display when an elderly gentleman interrupted me to ask if I could help his wife choose a girdle, he’d obviously assumed I was an employee restocking the hosiery display. I looked at them both with a smile and said, “I’m really sorry, I don’t work here, I’m searching for my size in stockings”. They both looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and began to walk away, as they did so I heard the husband say “well you’d at least think he would help you choose your girdle!”
My next story also took place in BHS, this time I was looking for a pair of black evening, heeled shoes. I wasn’t having much luck in finding a pair so I stopped a SA to ask if they had more styles. She appeared to think I was shopping for my wife so she asked, “what size does the lady take and how tall is she?” I looked at her and smiled and then replied, “you’re standing next to her!” With that she gave me a gentle elbow in the ribs, then looped her arm through mine saying, “come on madam let’s go find you some shoes!”
As I mentioned shoe shopping had many funny moments. A sales girl in Next honestly thought it was part of a Candid Camera stunt when I tried on a pair of crocodile skin heels. In a Brantano shoe store (now closed ) an SA was just zipping me up in knee high boots when we became aware of male shopper with his jaw dropped to the floor, we both creased up laughing.
There are so many more to tell but the sad thing is online shopping is killing off retail shops, in truth we need to keep shopping on the High Street. I do miss that time of taking the risk of being seen and wondering what SA’s really thought. I realise now they mostly enjoyed the humour as much as I did, working in retail are long, sometimes hard and boring days, having a guy walk in wanting to buy women’s clothes gives some of them a real buzz. OK perhaps they all had a laugh when they recalled the story in the staff restroom but they never gave me a hard time. When I question why I did it or why any of you do I feel the answer is validation, taking the next step on our journey, testing the water on how others respond to you.
So come on girls dig out some of your stories and have some fun recalling them.
4 Responses
I went to church dressed very nice in bodycon sweater dress with a scarf/shawl over my shoulders. I had recently bought a bunch of plumbing supplies to convert my stove to gas at Lowe’s with a bucket. I had all the excess parts in the bucket and decided why not so I returned the parts, after church. The associate complimented me on my dress and asked about my shawl. Proof nobody really cares. To quote Nike “just do it”
Vanessa
My most interesting encounters have been while shoe shopping. Once sitting next to two women at a large Macy’s women’s store comparing notes on shoes, It seems we had very similar feet and were having the same trouble getting shoes that fit.
Another time at a small boutique shoe store, I was trying a pair of heels and a woman was trying on a pair herself. She liked my choice and I liked her choice, so the manager brought out a pair of each in our sizes. I have had women try on the heel when they have the same size.
Just before Valentine’s Day last year I needed to get a corset, so I had to wait in a long line for a room to try it on at a Victoria’s Secret. Too bad it very noisy because I would have love to have heard what was being said at the other end of the line.
Like Nike and Vanessa says, just do it.
I have been shopping enfemme since the 80s. One time when I first starting shopping I was in a department store and a young sales girl was helping me. I thanked her and asked did she know right away. She seemed puzzled and asked know what. After I told her she was shocked and was a little upset. I felt bad for scaring her.
Terri M,
I had to think back if I’d actually scared SAs , early on I was more scared , I guess I had more emarrassing moments .
At first to gain confidence I always shopped near Xmas or Valentines day expecially if I
was buying nightwear or underwear , so I could say they were Xmas presents or Valentine gifts . A large department store had a Valentine Day sale , early on I knew my measurements so I would write them down and show SAs explaing they were my wife’s or daughter’s sizes . I couldn’t resist a full underwear set in red consisting of pants , bra , suspender belt and half slip , so I asked the SA for help but instead she called loudly across a busy store to another SA , ” ladies underwear for the gentleman !” Other customers turned to look and by then I’d turned as red as the underwear I was hoping to buy , but I wasn’t giving up on a half price offer so I braved it out and left the shop on cloud nine .
The only time I’ve had a problem was with other customers was in a charity shop looking for women’s jackets , two elderly ladies were checking out the racks as well , one then turned to me and said in a stern voice , ” men’s jackets are over there !” pointing to the male section . With that I pulled out a really nice Next ladies jacket and held it up against myself saying , ” This is really nice , do you think it suits me ?” with that they both turned slightly pink and marched out of the shop .
Another really amusing story again in a charity shop , I saw a lovely pair of silver , peep toe high heels .I asked the SA if I could try them on , so I popped behind the curtain to slip them on , at that moment the SA asked how I was doing so with out thinking I pulled the curtain back to find the SA standing there with her husband ( who had just popped in to see her for a moment ) . So he said , ” lovely shoes , if you don’t want them I’ll have them ! ” All three of us had a good laugh over that comment , any way I got to keep the shoes so he lost out .