I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas - Lewis Black [25]
No, you definitely had to search for the true bargain. The twelve-dollar designer dress shirt. Twelve dollars. How do they do it? Who starved to death to make this possible? They must have removed the Crappy label and sewn in a new one. It was the first time in my life that I understood what hunting was like. The joy is in the pursuit, not the kill. (Okay, maybe sometimes the kill, too.) Sometimes in stores I’d pick up something and think, “This is a good buy, but I know there’s better somewhere else. Maybe the store down the street. Or in the mall. I know there’s better out there, and as God is my witness, I will find it!”
I heard a famous Filene’s Basement shopping story a long time ago. Legend has it that in order not to lose their place at a circular rack of dresses, rather than go to a dressing room, women would climb into the middle of the rack and try on their finds. Either you admire the resourcefulness or think that it’s crazy. Either way, you’d be right.
Filene’s Basement was the place where I discovered nicer clothes than I’d ever worn in my life up to that point. Shirts that didn’t feel like cardboard and sweaters that didn’t give me the sensation I was dying of extreme eczema. Weird that a discount department store turned me on the same as the first dope dealer I had. I had stopped smoking pot around the time when I was learning to shop, and the last thing I expected was to stumble down the stairs in a Boston department store into a new high. Cotton. Wool. Advanced man-made fibers (which I found didn’t really give me the same buzz as natural fibers, but it never hurts to experiment). Though it wasn’t long before I was hearing about even better clothing that I could come by for just a few dollars more.
“Really? This is the good shit? Wow!”
“Oh, yes it is, and there’s more where that came from, my friend. Hell, yeah, in about six months I’m hooking up with a different supplier and you’re not going to even believe how good that shit is, makes this shit look like shit. Now, it’s going to be a little more expensive, but you are going to be so glad you won’t even care about the cost. You won’t believe it. You’ll see the difference, you’ll feel the difference, and it wears longer. I mean, this isn’t just cashmere, my friend. This is baby cashmere. I’m telling you, people kill for these kinds of quality goods.”
Who knew there were baby cashmeres wandering around?
I was in a clothing store recently and the salesperson took me to a back room, where the really fantastic shit was. You know what I mean: the shit that’s so good they keep it a secret unless someone can really appreciate how truly great the shit is. It’s just like buying prime dope: you spend a little more for the better shit. And there’s always better shit. You don’t get addicted so much as you just want to see what the next ounce is like, ’cause it’s going to be the really great shit.
So as I look through my closet, it’s like a history of highs, with the occasional bummer. A bummer being a piece of clothing that looked stunning on me when the very hot young salesgirl told me it did. Now I stare at a hideous red shirt, as if the shirt had been dyed in blood. She told me it was the kind of thing I should wear.
“Are you sure?” I asked her. “Because I never wear red.”
“Red is the new hot color this spring. And I mean hot.”
“It looks like it’s been dyed in blood.”
“It’s edgy. And edgy is hot.”
“Really?”
“It’s the kind of thing you probably would never wear—which is why you should wear it. It would surprise people and make you look younger. What are you, seventy?”
What?
“Besides, you know how much women love surprises.