My Little Pony

Sometimes when I’m shopping, I feel like a character in Greek mythology. Sadly, not Aphrodite or Helen or even a minor muse. I’m thinking Tantalus.

A refresher: Tantalus was the son of Zeus whose punishment for some affront to the gods was to have to stand neck-deep in water, but when he leaned down to drink, the water would recede; and though fruit trees were overhead, the fruit would be just out of reach. Thus the word tantalize.

So I’m not talking about seeing from across the room the most beautiful pair of ostrich Gucci mules and then finding out they don’t have your size. No, that’s too easy. Not nearly painful enough. It’s more like when you see the mules. . . your salesman finds your size. . . but then the left shoe is missing. Oh, so close! So then the salesman tells you that it must be here somewhere, that it’s just probably been put in the wrong place in the stockroom, and so he’ll look for it later and send the pair to you.

And the other shoe never drops (in your lap or anywhere else).

Or it’s when you see the cutest pony skin Isabella Fiore handbag on saks.com — the black version of this one — and you run over to the store to have a look, but they just sold the last one. So the saleswoman checks the computer and sees that the store in Pittsburgh has two of them, and she takes your Saks card and places the order for you, and tells you that you should receive it in a week, and “Enjoy!”

And then ten days later . . . nothing. Worse, two weeks in, the saleswoman calls you to ask how you’re enjoying the bag. What bag?! You tell her you never got it. So she tells you she’ll look into it. And she never calls you back. Three weeks after that fateful day you saw the bag online, and almost got it, and then didn’t, and then were practically taunted by the woman who was supposed to have gotten it for you . . . nothing. Nada. Zilch. And while you were waiting, the item sold out on the website.

To add insult to injury, of course, any day now I’ll get that form letter from Saks saying they’re sorry, but the item I ordered is out of stock. It’s like a Dear John letter for a jilted shopper.

Yeah, that’s tantalizing. And that’s no myth.

      
      

This entry was posted on Monday, September 26th, 2005 at 8:05 am and is filed under Shopping, Fashion, Miscellany. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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