So, my headache doesn't really get any better. As a matter of fact, it makes me feel so sick
that I leave work after my last academic block but before an important
administrative meeting. Apparently no
one tells my principal because the vice principal who answered my emergency
"I'm gonna puke" email also leaves sick. Oh well.
Life is like that sometimes.
I head home, pop some Tylenol, and try to eat
something. I'm home now, so I don't care
if I spend the rest of the afternoon hugging the porcelain god. But I have an event to attend at 6:00
p.m. I truly want to go because my
brand-new daughter-in-law will be at the event, and I want to support her and
hang out with her, too, because she's a blast to be around. So at 5:50 p.m., I've rallied enough to make
it to the store where the event will be held.
It's only about a half-mile from my house. If I feel terrible, I could even crawl home
if need be.
When I arrive, I see food.
Ugh. Nope. Not happening. I work my way through the store. It's a high-end consignment shop, and the
stuff they sell is exceptional, really great quality with competitive
prices. I am distracted by the shiny
objects and party dresses for events to which I will never be invited. I work my way toward the back and discover …
fur coats.
Now please do not debate with me the merits or disgraces of
animal hunting. There are goddamn skunks
and river rats overrunning my urban neighborhood, and I recently saw a dead
wolf on the side of a suburban highway.
I like wildlife as much as the next person, but there's a line to be
drawn (like when I cannot get into the parking lot of my work because there are
twenty or thirty turkeys pecking the pebbles off the driveway for about fifteen
minutes and they are completely undaunted by screaming and honking and revved
engines). So please, don't judge me as
some kind of anti-animal rights person simply because I grew up hiding away in
the fur coat section of Jordan Marsh with my sister where we would smooth out
the fur going one way and write words with our fingers going against the fur
grain.
Back to my present-day story. In the fur coat section of the store, I
discover some mink and raccoon coats.
They are gorgeous, luxurious, stunning.
And semi-expensive. The
full-length minks I pull from the rack run between $800 and $1,000. Oooooh. Shiiiiiiny. Then I discover the full-length raccoon coats
are only $300. Bargain! I wonder where in
my world would I ever wear a full-length fur coat? A Bruins game? Yeah.
No. So I walk away.
But not for long.
There is a masseuse set up near the station where my
daughter-in-law is located. DIL
convinces me to get a mini-massage, which turns into five minutes of
relaxation, which, for me, is alien.
I've had two kinds of massages:
the electric pulse ones for a lower-back/hip bursitis problem, and a
brief hands-on one at a conference.
Apparently I cannot relax. That's
right, you heard me: The woman who can
fall asleep at a stop light, who routinely falls off the computer chair in a
dead faint, who can doze in the dentist chair, cannot relax herself long enough
to get a mini-massage. When berated to
relax my shoulders, I usually respond, "I AM RELAXED!" (followed by
"FUCK OFF" under my breath).
But I suffer from cluster headaches, and I'm in the throes of a two-day
cluster headache right now. I allow the
masseuse to touch all of the extremely painful pressure points of my neck and
head. Does this hurt, she asks me over and over. Yes, actually it's like torture and daggers
but I'll risk anything for a few minutes of relief at this point. The pain the nerve endings are feeling at the
base of my skull are better than the tearing agony of the pain behind my
eyeball that is shooting in hot pokers out my right ear. There are actually a few moments during this
mini-massage where I forget I have a headache.
Eventually, though, I have to yield the chair.
For the first time in days I am craving something to drink
and feel like I might be able to keep it in my stomach. I stop and eat something flaky and then hit
the cannoli chips and ricotta dip - holy
shit, people, there really is a god.
I head to the rear of the shop where the wine table is waiting. When I go back, two older women are trying on
fur coats. They are absolutely
beautiful, hair done to the max, jewelry, and thoroughly enjoying their night
out. They've little intention of
purchasing furs. The saleswoman is
working it, and she's doing a great job.
Three gulps of sauvignon blanc later, I'm ready to help her out.
I start chatting the ladies up and drooling over how nice
they look in the various furs, and, truth be told, they do look fabulous. "That coat is gorgeous with your hair
color," I gush quite honestly and with a little jealousy. Her friend agrees. I sip some more and move along. After circling the store for the fourth time,
I find myself back at the furs again.
This time the other woman is trying on a fur coat. She looks equally stunning, and I tell her
so.
To make a long story just slightly less long, I end up
becoming great pals with Muriel, Joan, and their other pal Gloria, who is
buying a lime-colored suede jacket and debating some semi-matching
gold-green-blue jewelry. I grab the
jacket from her and hold it up.
"Put the necklace with it," I smile smoothly, then add, "and
with a navy shirt underneath, this look is killer." I turn my attention back to Joan. "What happened to that sexy mink that
matches your hair?" She assures me
it is up at the counter waiting for her.
I turn to Muriel. She is debating
between a short jacket, a mid-length jacket, and a long coat. All three are mink. I try to read the sales clerk. She's pushing for the mid-length, I can tell.
I chat Muriel up, discover she is recently retired from
education, and convince her she is worth the money and the mink. Completely and totally worth it. She says she has no place to wear it. I assure her that I would go wherever she
does in that jacket because she looks fantastic, beautiful, stunning. And I'm not remotely joking. She simply looks gloriously happy in the
mink. I wish I could look so happy.
Once I have convinced the three women that no, I do not work
for the store and I am not getting a commission, I hit the wine table up one
more time. Headache? What headache? I yak with them until they reach the cash
register. I'm telling you, I am not
letting those women go anywhere without those coats. I want to live vicariously through them,
three wonderfully happy friends having a marvelous time and looking radiant
beyond anything I've seen. I cannot
recall the last time I saw such truly lovely women inside and out, such close
kinship amongst my own at their ages, which they admit to me is 70. I assure Muriel she doesn't look a day over
62, and I mean it. Retired people,
especially those retired from education, always look younger as they age.
I leave the shop without making a single purchase for
tonight really isn't about me. I mean,
it is and it isn't. I'm out and about,
and I'm having a helluva time, and for the first time in 48 hours my head is
only pounding and not throbbing with brain-strangling agony. (Those who live with cluster headaches
understand that there is no choice but to push through the pain because the
episodes often last days, even weeks, so functionality is one of our coping
mechanisms.) I smile for the first time
in hours. I am relaxed for the first
time in what feels like forever.
About thirty minutes after returning home my headache finds
me again. It wasn't really gone, but it
did seem to be napping for a bit. I
think about those three charming women and I hope they are as happy with their
purchases as I am for them. I can't wait
to be them -- a little older, retired, out and having a grand time with chums
without a care in the world. Meeting
them has changed my outlook and how I feel about myself.
And most of all, it reminds me that I haven't lost my touch
for retail.
So the next time I'm on the verge of being fired, or if my
boss freaks out because I am deathly ill in the middle of the day, get
permission to leave, but forget to get my urgent request sanctioned by ten
supervisors and the president, I guess I'll still have a career in sales … if
that sales clerk in the fur department of the shop doesn't want to skin me
alive first for honing in on her sales, that is.
That's my story, anyway, and it's mostly the truth. Only the names have been… no, they
haven't. Shout out to Gloria, Muriel,
and Joan. You are my new BFF's.
