Flattery, My Dear, Will Get You Everywhere

I was in a store the other day that was having an end of summer sale which was troubling seeing as it was still July. I am sure if I went in there now I would find they are pedaling earmuffs by the cartful and I would be obliged to buy a pair out of the fear that by time January rolls around there will be nary a muff to purchase and I might lose my ear in some tragic frostbite incident.

I am a bargain hunter at heart and this particular day my eyes alighted on the loveliest pair of kitten heeled black shoes with a toe that was pointy yet round (oxymoron or modern day cobbling miracle? My vote is for the latter). A light shined down from above and I heard heavenly voices singing. As I picked them up off the display I felt like Arthur must have felt pulling Excalibur from the stone.

Eager to find out the price, I searched for a friendly orange sticker atop the tag or a nearby 50% off sign. I was conditioned to early on by time spent wide eyed and horrified in the communal Loehman’s women’s dressing room with my mother and also acquainted at a young age with the depression era mentality that used to make it mandatory for my grandmother to put leftover dinner rolls in her purse when we were dining out. One time when I was at the easily mortified age of 12 or 13 we went to the movies after leaving a restaurant and as Nanny reached into her bag for her wallet, rolls came flying out instead. The ticket taker looked alarmed but was protected by the plastic partition. However, the innocent bystanders on line behind us were not so lucky as to escape the ricocheting bread. You don’t witness that kind of carnage as a girl without being somehow profoundly affected, and I suspect the mark it has left on me is that I am reluctant to pay full price for anything.

My heart sunk when I realized the pair was not reduced. But, hope springs eternal and I thought perhaps they had missed this item in the all the summer sale scuffle. I flagged down a friendly looking floor girl and asked her if she knew if they were on sale: “Oh no, we just got those in. Aren’t they great? You know what? Keep your eye on them-most of the people who come in this store don’t have as good taste and won’t realize that is such an amazing shoe”

I flushed with joy. I smiled. I stammered a thanks amid blushes and shrugged my shoulders as if to say. “Little old me? Oh now it couldn’t be. Go on. You are too much! Me, a fashion standout in a city of over 8 million? Well really if you must know, having such good taste is just a curse sometimes, a burden really…” And with that I glanced around at the other patrons in the store with a little disdain and a little pity that they could not have as discerning a shoe palate as I.

I took this salesperson’s(who by then I had determined was an obviously brilliant individual) sage advice and vowed to keep my eye on the shoes in the weeks to come. But, I found I was distracted that day thinking of them, and that night I walked right past my apartment building as visions of kitten heels danced in my head. I started to worry that I had only seen one pair in my size. What if someone else ended up with my shoes, someone who couldn’t love them as much as I did? Someone who did not have my excellent taste but just happened to need a black pair of shoes and thought this pair “would do?.” Then they would be trotting around the city in my shoes and I would be running barefoot through the streets without a heel to stand on.

It could not be.
It must not be.

I had to go back and rescue them. I was obligated to give them the home they deserved where they wouldn’t get scuffed up or neglected. I could barely sleep that night and the next day on my lunch break I ran over nearly frantic. I scooped up the white box clutching it protectively as I scurried over to the register

Now, not to give the impression that I am a fickle fanny, but I have to confess this was not the first time I had fallen hard for a pair of shoes. I still get little pangs of regret thinking of the twosome that was the love of my springtime life this year. They were a seafoamy green dream with a 2.5 inch heel and a round little toe. I spotted them in the window of a boutique. That day I walked by three times to look at them, the next day I went in to see them in the store, and the day after that I found them online. But, the price for this pair was also prohibitive and I decided I had to put them out of sight and out of mind. I deleted the website from the bookmarked pages on my computer and I avoided the aforementioned shop window. With time my passion subsided and I was able to put the temptation behind me without a charge to show for it on my Visa card.

What was the difference this time that made me act like such a spendthrift? I have had to admit myself in thinking it over that it must have been the compliments of the salesclerk, and this reminded me of all the buzz there has been of late about what characterizes my generation in the workplace. In his recent columns for the Wall Street Journal, “Blame it On Mr. Rogers” and the follow up “The Entitlement Epidemic: Who’s Really to Blame?” Jeffrey Zaslow explores the claim that my generation feels an overall sense of entitlement and is accustomed to being told by Mr. Rogers, parents, and society in general that they are “special” and that we now require this type of praise to function in the workplace and in life.

With this in mind my splurge becomes not a momentary lapse of judgment brought on by shoephoria, but a conditioned response resulting from years of self esteem building gone awry. The salesperson made me think that I was part of an exclusive fashion fraternity and I fell for it hook, line and sinker. I have to admit this worries me and going forward it is something I will certainly be wary of not only when retail is the matter at hand but in my personal and professional lives as well. I would like to think I am not that susceptible to a little flattery. But there seems to be two pieces of indisputable evidence to the contrary and I am currently wearing both of them in a size 7.5.