Confessions Of A Splenda Stealer

As a Splenda Stealer, designer labels are just not in the budget. If I’m wearing something with an H, LV, CC, Tiffany or David Yurman jewelery, etc., it’s was probably a present from someone. Not probably, it was. (I don’t currently have anything with CCs but if you are reading this please feel free to donate to the “Confessions Of A Splenda Stealer Fund.”

Call me silly, but before I worked in NYC I knew nothing about the sample sale. The only “super designer discount” event I ever want to was this weird warehouse of Saks Fifth Avenue down in Maryland during my senior year in college. After that experience, I sort of swore those sales off. In short, it was terrifying. Waiting on a line of antsy women who then literally sprint into the stale sales room with water-stained carpeting to snatch up as many deals as possible is not my idea of fun. Call me crazy, but part of the reason I like to shop is the experience, especially when buying luxury items. I would much rather sip my coffee and slowly peruse the racks or window displays than fight over a Longchamp bag with some overly tan woman in a Juicy velour sweatsuit who reeks of cigarettes.

But during my first few weeks working in Midtown and reading NYC blogs and such, I stumbled upon sites like TopButton.com that were all gung-ho about the sample sale. I was curious to see how these sales may be different from my traumatizing experience. The first one I went to was a Diane Von Furstenberg sale with my friend Nikki–and it was a eye-opening experience. Cramped quarters, racks of clothing with tiny aisles so that you have to become-one-with the clothes for people to pass you, a “dressing room” which was just a big room with mirrors and a guy counting down the 90 seconds you had to try on the 30 articles of clothing that you dragged in there. Sheer craziniess. I never saw so many strangers in their thongs, which brings me to sample sale rule #1: prepare to take your clothes off in front of strangers. Unless you are an exhibitionist, do not wear your super lacy or really old unmentionables to a sample sale because chances are, you will not be trying on clothes in a regular dressing room. Super time saver–wear thin layers that you can throw dresses or tops over and avoid the try-on line completely.

#2) It pays to be, how should we say, “un-petite.” I am a slender person, but I am not a size 2 which works incredibly to my advantage because when I got to this year’s Diane von Furstenberg sample sale, most of the women who were on the line (that literally stretched around the block) were all teeny, tiny Asian women. As annoying as the line was, and as hysterical as the inside of the sample space was, not only were all these women fighting over the Thumbelina sizes, but if I had to, I could just stampede over them to my part of the rack.

#3) Do your research. I already knew my size in DVF before I went, and I stuck to the styles of clothing, like the wrap dresses, that I know fit me really well. I actually did go out on a limb and bought two styles that I never tried on before, but luckily, they fit amazingly! No try on line=me flying over to the check-out line to buy five dresses that normally would have cost around $1,500 to $2,000 for only $825. I still had to fight back a seizure when I handed over my credit card, but two of the dresses were for my mom, which brings up rule #4: while it can be fun and exhilarating to share the sample sale experience, if you offer to shop for anyone, make sure they are the same size as you. Grab whatever you like, and then the two of you can decide who fits what best.

Without the time I waited on the line to get in, which was only about 15 min, I was in and out of the sample sale in half an hour, tops. I spent the next 20 minutes leisurely walking to work, swinging my bag of DVF dresses in a no-frills white shopping bag. I was distracted for the rest of the day.

One of the wrap dresses! How cute!! It has pirates on it.

There are many times in life when it pays to be a girl. Not that I condone such behavior, but sometimes playing the “damsel in distress” or “dumb blonde” works to our benefit, whether I like it or not. I’ve never been pulled over by a cop, and now that I don’t have a car the only ticket I could ever get would be open container or something ridiculous like that, but acting all weepy or flirty or dumb sometimes gets you out of sticky situations. I never really put on this act, but for many girls, it works.

There are a few other places where it may work as well:

–the Verizon or other cell phone center

–the place where you go for computer repairs

–probably others but I haven’t exactly mastered this skill, which is why I have no idea why I tried when I brought in my little baby nano to the Genius Bar in an Apple Store.

I was home for the weekend–MEMORIAL DAY!!–and my Dad felt bad for me because he and I relate to how much we love our iPods and understood that I would probably go nuts if I didn’t have one. I made an appointment, and away we went to Freehold Raceway Mall. I figured that since my iPod didn’t have any visible signs of water damage, or that I even dropped it, I thought maybe this was my time to shine. Maybe, I could finally master that “Oooh…it’s not working…what should I do?” and pull one over on the Genius Bar Man. I sort of hate myself a little for admitting that, but when it comes to saving my Nano baby, I would pull out all the stops.

Yeah, um, no. The guy was so not having it. He takes one prod at my Nano and looks at my blankly, “There is water damage. It will die.”

I can’t believe that I actually acted surprised and said, “Oh, yeah that makes sense. Some water got in my bag and I wasn’t sure if it reached my Nano.”

Why did I even bother to say that lie? Why did I feel obligated to play a game with Genius Bar man? Why didn’t I just say, “Yeah, so I dropped this in a puddle on 8th Ave. Is there any silver lining here?” Why play these games? Who knows.

It has now been two weeks…and it’s still alive and kicking. I am taking very good care of it, yet I don’t allow it in my bed anymore because I will never be able to shake that memory of the puddle.

What the hell. It’s all too perfect how I was thinking about a potential post about the unexpected, SOL moments in life that leave us in the red, both in the face and in our checking accounts. As much as we can budget, there are always random moments of bad luck, or karma (I hope it’s just bad luck) when we have to pause and either laugh or cry as we pay again through the nose.

Today, I cried. Upon walking from Port Authority this morning, it seemed like a good morning. I woke up pretty much on time, picked out a shirt and pants with coordinating colors pretty quickly–hell, even my lunch was already made from the day before. I get on the bus and find my friend and so we chat it up as it took a brief 15 minutes to get through the tunnel. Perfect. A little too perfect, you may say.

About three minutes after crossing onto 40th Street and 8th Ave., disaster strikes. As I am bopping it out to either Elvis Costello or some random dance mix thanks to iPod’s ability to shuffle its library, I walk off the curb to get around some guy who is walking like a turtle with his stupid wheely briefcase behind him. Maybe it was bad karma due to my sidewalk rage, but as I stepped off the curb to pass, my finger got caught in my headphone wire, propelling my headphones out of my ears, my little green nano out of my unzipped tote, and flew about 10 feet ahead of me—into a puddle. Yes, one of those puddles where you can’t even see the bottom, due to random floating coffee lids and other murky, mysterious ingredients that you can no doubt spell with an “s” a “t” and a “d.” Kill me.

It was a three pointer shot. The odds of it landing into that puddle were phenomenal. It was the only puddle within twenty feet of where I was walking. Horror stricken at the thought of a) losing another iPod to water damage (I lost one back in February due to a leaking water bottle in my gym bag) b) losing another couple hundred bucks c) it’s a deadline crunch day for me when I NEED TO LISTEN TO MY OWN MUSIC AND NOW I CAN’T all flashed in and out of my head within three seconds. Before I knew it, adrenaline forced me to pluck my baby out of the abyss. I ran to the first cafe I could find, grabbing about 50 napkins to wipe it down and shake it out. It was still working at the time, but from my last experience, I knew it was in a critical state, soon to become grave, then probably flat line.

Besides slathering about an entire bottle of Purell on my hands, the rest of the walk to work was pretty grim. Cradling my iPod nano baby in ten napkins, I finally place it in my bag, zip it up, and now I wait…

It is now resting vertically against my coffee mug, hopefully drying out. The headphones are long gone, in the trash of the coffee place because I feared I would suffer from ear rot if I salvaged them. If I hear of any signs of life, I’ll let you know.