I'm awesome at shutting down solicitors.
Knock on my door and try to sell me shit or impose your beliefs on me and I will a) not answer the door whilst possibly yelling "no thanks" through the closed door, b) open the door, if I'm in a generous mood and you don't look scary, and let you get about 3 words out and then close the door whilst saying "no thanks" or c) if you are a neighborhood kid, open the door, listen politely to your little spiel and then explain that if I were buying from that catalog it would be from my own kids who you know live at this house and attend your school and why are you going door to door anyway when the school flyer clearly states- don't do that?!?
Do not even attempt to engage with me if you work at a mall kiosk. I will ignore you and your attempt to hand me a coupon and keep on walking. Until last week that is when I bought a new hair straightener. At the mall. From a kiosk chick. It's a very good (but not actually magical) straightener and you can also make it curl your hair (which apparently can be done with any straightener) and the sales chick made my hair look really cool. It did cost too much and it's of course not returnable, but she did throw in $70 hair serum for free. For free!
So here's what happened. I took my 12 y/o daughter and her 2 friends to the mall and turned them lose. They had instructions to check in at certain times and to answer my texts or calls ASAP in order to keep their wandering about unsupervised privileges. This left me on my own at the mall. I think they did better with their new found freedom than I did.
I was actually doing awesome before the kiosk incident. First I enjoyed the nirvana that is Nordstrom. I love everything about Nordstrom with the exception of the price tags on most of their stuff, but there were quite a few sales racks and the customer service is the same amount of wonderful no matter how much you're forking out. I mean I assume it is. I've always gotten fabulous customer service spending in the tens or hundreds. I'm not sure what happens if you spend thousands. Maybe they carry you on their shoulders out to your car?
Anyway, after success at Nordies, I headed to MAC to get some essentials like under eye revitalizer and foundation and possibly new eye shadows for Spring. I ended up letting the MAC lady redo my whole face. Yes, I bought a few more items than I went in for, but we all lead with our face and MAC is quality shit and well worth it.
So there I am with my Nordies bag and my MAC bag strolling through the mall feeling sassy with time to burn and the kiosk girl appears in front of me. "Can I ask you a question about your hair?" she says. "What?" I say apparently too giddy from my shopping and newly made up face to clue into what was happening. Next thing I know I'm in the chair and she's doing this magical curling thing on my hair with a straightener. Then I was trapped. I wasn't going to get up an wander the mall with 1/4 of my hair curled. The girl just keeps talking and asking me questions and curling my hair. There was a special that day (uh-huh) and all the straighteners (just pick your favorite color) were on sale 1/2 off. All you had to do was look at the box to see the full price and know you were getting a smokin deal. Then she offered me the free smoothing serum (the serum actually works well) and all of a sudden I'm handing over my credit card.
I walked away with very cute hair and that feeling of what the fuck just happened? I did a comparison the next day and I still like my Chi straightener better than the mall one and guess what? I'm not great at the magical curling thing with either straightener. My daughter had been complaining that she needed a new straightener so I gave the mall one to her and she's happy with it so there's that. I am now telling myself that my lapse in judgement did not result in a complete waste of money.
The girl has been appreciative of the gift, but she did say to me in a rather sincere tone, "tell me again why you bought that mall straightener?". Never one to shy away from a teaching moment I spun my story into a cautionary tale and concluded with, "I was just plain bamboozled". She then pointed and laughed at me and I deserved it.
peace & love :-)
