Sales Talk

As we were about to depart Union Square (see post below) after an unsuccessful quest for the perfect tote bag, we stopped at another designer store. The saleslady was very helpful, but the best bag of the lot, which incredibly was even more costly than the one I had picked out two weeks ago, wasn’t quite the right color. At that point I began to suspect that my practical spouse just didn’t want to spend that much money on an article that wasn’t more functional than a $15 canvas carrier from a discount store. Well, she will be making a presentation to a centimillionaire investor later this month, and if she doesn’t think replacing her battered black beauty is important, then it isn’t.

My wife deduced from the saleslady’s accent and appearance that she hailed from Hawaii. The saleslady (I very much want to call her a "salesgirl" given how young she appeared to us, but that is one term, I'm afraid, that has been consigned to the dustbin of history)had been offered a transfer from the Kahala branch of the store and had seized upon the opportunity to leave the Aloha State for a few years. We remarked that we had similarly resolved to return to the Islands, after a five-year stint in the Bay Area, in 1975.

The first question that ex-Islanders ask upon meeting each other on the Mainland is, “Which high school are you from?” Upon discovering that she and I had attended the same institution, a college preparatory school founded by Calvinist missionaries in the 19th century, we disclosed our respective years of graduation. We then engaged in the ritual conversation conducted by two people of widely disparate ages who find they nevertheless have something in common.

Older person: A friend of mine has a daughter about your age. Do you know [......]?
Younger person: Hmm, sorry, I don’t know her. She may have graduated a few years ahead of me.
OP: One of my favorite teachers was Mrs. [......] . She was fairly new when I took English Lit.
YP: Old Mrs. [......]?? She was a great teacher! We threw a retirement celebration for her my junior year.

I thought about people who were retired and buildings that no longer exist and changed the subject to the durability of designer appurtenances, which, given the age of the buyer, have a reasonable probability of being buried with said buyer. We took our fellow Hawaiian's card, wished her the best of luck, thanked her for her time and exited to the sunlight. © 2004 Stephen Yuen