When I was a little kid my mom tried to bargain with the cashier at the GAP when she bought a boatload of socks. I was mortified. “Mom, we are in a store, at the MALL. This isn’t a flea market; sales people here don’t bargain.” I said as I rolled my eyes. Fast forward twenty years, and I was eating my words.
A few weeks ago I was en route across the country to an outdoor December wedding. My friend Amanda didn’t get the heads up that the ceremony would be outside on the water. When I told her this she said, “Well I’ll just wear my fleece zip-up over my dress.” Friends don’t let friends wear fleece to another friend’s wedding. That would be breaking two cardinal rules in the friend code at once.
Instead of driving straight to our hotel, we took a brief detour to the nearest outlet mall in search for a pair of shoes for me, and of course, an appropriate jacket for her. One of my favorite things about Amanda is this little song and dance that we do when we go shopping. She laments about how much she hates trying things on, and I pick out a few things for her, then she tells me she doesn’t want to spend so much money on herself buying them, then I tell her all the things she could wear said item of clothing with, then she gives in and buys it, then I calm her buyer’s remorse once again, then she calls me two weeks later and tells me how many times she wore said item, and that she can’t live without it. Although we hadn’t seen each other in over a year, once we entered the sliding glass doors of the outlet mecca, we fell into our old routine.
While walking though the mall Amanda told me how much she really wanted to buy a leather jacket for fall/winter. As we rounded the corner my eye immediately went to a beautiful, gray leather jacket on display at Calvin Klein. I ran into the store and would have plucked it from the rack but for the fact that it had an alarm tethered to it. I immediately knew what she was thinking—alarm on jacket = expensive jacket. It was a pretty simple equation. Amanda excitedly tried on the jacket anyway and the sales associate and I nodded excitedly when it fit her perfectly. Then the song and dance began:
Me: “That jacket is amazing on you.”
Her: “It is kind of expensive.”
Me: “But it is on sale, at an outlet, and the tax rate here is lower, so it is like, practically free.”
Her: “Didn’t I say I was looking for a leather jacket?”
Me: “Yeah, you just said that. And you can wear this to the wedding because it is fancy enough.”
Her: “Well, I don’t know…should I get the black one or the gray one.”
Me: (Smiling to myself, because I know I have already won her over) “The gray one since you just said you always wear black.”
As I took a victory lap around the store and picked up a few things for myself, I saw Amanda at the checkout chatting it up with the sales person at the cashwrap.
Amanda: “So do I get any extra discount on this?”
Sales guy: “Sorry, it already has a 15% discount today.”
Amanda: “Well can I get a discount for being AWESOME?”
Sales guy: “Ok, but don’t tell anybody.”
Then the guy gives her an extra 10% off.
Once again my mom was right. Sometimes people at the mall will throw you a bone just because you ask, or just because you are awesome.
If my guy friends actually read this blog (which I am pretty sure they don’t) they are going to take one look at the picture I am posting of Amanda in her leather jacket and they are going to tell me that she got the discount because she is hott. This is true, Amanda is hott, but she still wouldn’t have gotten the discount if she didn’t ask. In this economy, it never hurts to ask. The worst that can happen is that you pay the outlet sale price.
I know some people think that writing about fashion is frivolous and materialistic, but the art of asking is not just relegated to shopping. Last week I was at a ceremony for Holly Fujie to celebrate her recently being chosen to sit on the bench. For those of you not in the legal world, she was president of the California State Bar, a powerhouse female attorney, and an all around rock star. My friend and I were grabbing ramen after the event (since we were starving associates who just came to the event post work and skipped the apps and headed straight for the free booze.) While I was texting him for directions, he texted back that he was running late because he offered to carry some stuff to Judge Fujie’s car for her. I texted back that he should invite her to ramen with us—two first year associates. So he asked her to have dinner with us at a hole in the wall ramen joint in Little Tokyo, and she said yes! So the lady of the evening, the honored judge, role model, rock star, etc. came to ramen with us JUST BECAUSE WE ASKED. Pretty freaking awesome.
