Monday, June 25, 2007

REI: You Suck and I'm Going to Tell Everyone

here was a time, many months ago, when my fried KP and I encountered what we then believed to be The Worst Retail Salesperson Ever.

After several hours of pillaging through racks of dresses at Neiman Marcus, KP found a Cynthia Vincent black strapless dress which was suitable for wear to a dance we had agreed to attend with one of my numerous gay exboyfriends + his black toothed friend. We carried the garment to the counter for purchase and were quickly informed that "we accept American Express, Diner's Club, and Neiman Marcus cards."

Given my horribly bad credit, I gave up then and there. KP, the pillar of good credit and responsibility, was not to be deterred. 15 minutes later, she stared indignantly at an attractive Italian salesman who quietly informed her that she had been rejected. I secretly believe KP failed to meet the "snobby bitch" requirement for obtaining Neiman's line of credit, but recognize it's also likely that no matter how good KP's credit could be, she was also a law student with 80K+ in loans.

At the time, it didn't matter. All I knew was that KP found her dream dress, she deserved her dream dress, and if she didn't get her dream dress, somebody was gonna hear about it from me. I marched myself to customer service where I lied earnestly through clenched teeth, informing the short pudgy Neiman representative that he and his store had lost a lifetime of business from a soon-to-be Successful Wealthy Well-Dressed Attorney (I was referring to myself-- which is why this claim was a big fat lie. Not only do I have no intentions of boycotting Neiman Marcus, it's also highly unlikely that I ever be a Successful Wealthy anything).

He turned his little pig nose up in my face, cross his chubby little arms across his chest and recited "this is the direction our company wishes to take." Fire brims in my soul to this day.

So until yesterday, Neiman Marcus had earned, in my book, the Worst Retail Salesperson Ever award, narrowly defeating only the salesman at Marshall Fields who once suggested to me that I check the men's section for shoes. Bastard.

Anyway, yesterday my boyfriend and I drove on a congested highway away from urban civilization in pursuit of the highly acclaimed REI store. A self-admitted prissy girl, I had never set foot inside any sort of mountain-y earth-people store and did so yesterday only because my boyfriend and I made a deal. I go camping next week-- he votes democratic in the next election. We need mountain-y earth people gear to go camping, so it seemed only appropriate that we visit a mountain-y earth people store to purchase said gear.

Despite my unyielding reluctance to dip my perfectly pedicured toes into the cold unwelcoming lake of mountain-y earth people clothing, I did attend REI yesterday with some anticipation. My childhood best friend Synthia is a mountain-y earth woman, and her wardrobe is extremely cool and urban chic. From her sleek black north face fleece to her cosmopolitan 'i' am a earth woman, i just happen to also look cool' smith aviator glasses,' Synthia epitomizes the earth-friendly fashion, In fact, Synthia is and has always been the best dressed girl on the face of the earth-- in my eyes, and the idea of drinking from the same well as she was appealing. She had always spoken of REI as if it were like an organic Barney's, where every overpriced piece was made by well paid americans out of synthetic fabric. As you know, I do not believe in polyester, but I was willing to check it out nonetheless.

...fuck. see, i spent all this time building up and now i'm out of study break minutes. which means you are all (ahem, all 2 of you) going to have to wait a day till i finish my REI bashing story. In the meantime, stay away from that cold tacky building lest you purchase an item without directions, without a price tag and without a single fucking human employed by REI who can tell you what it's supposed to do.

Friday, June 8, 2007

I have breasts!

Someone who's important and knows more than I once called the drugstore speech in the 1996 movie Beautiful Girls "the best ten minutes of Rosie O'Donnell's career."

While it is perhaps in the greatest all time quotes ever, I tend to disagree, but we already know that I'm a flaming feminist liberal so let's move on. A portion of the quote goes something like this:

"Let me explain something to you, ok? Girls with big tits have big asses. Girls with little tits have little asses. That's the way it goes. God doesn't fuck around; he's a fair guy. He gave the fatties big, beautiful tits and the skinnies little tiny niddlers."

It's as much human as it is female, and although I can't really ponder the male equivalent, I'm sure they covet one another's... well I'm sure the grass is always greener for boys, too. It's simple, really: Skinny girls wish for boobs. Chubby girls wish for size 4 jeans. Anyone who has both large breasts and size 4 jeans is either a freak of nature, or not the product of nature.

I have an odd frame for a tall girl. At some point in my delayed pubescence, bumps developed where they were previously unrealized in the Beek family. My tall skinny mother looked to my tall skinny sister who shrugged her shoulders as if the milkman could be responsible.

Soon thereafter, I rejoiced in my newfound cleavage and entered the inevitable 'get-fat' period of my froesman year-- also known as the "freshman fifteen." Actually... sadly... I've heard that the phrase used to be the "freshman ten," which in my college days matured to the fifteen, and now I've heard they call is the "freshman twenty." Tragic, those cafeteria cheese quesadillas-- they are tragic.

I puffed up like a top-heavy, chubby giraffe, finding my (speaking of tragic...) black stretchy express pants even too tight, and spilling out of a D cup. When I returned home for the summer, my dad got me a gym membership, my mom told me to get rid of the ortho, and I slimmed down once again. Since then I've suffered my ups and downs, but never gotten close to the whopping 160 pounds I reached during that first year of college. Today I'm sort of a frail creature which I credit to living alone, as well as a number of other factors the details of which I'll spare you. In short, I'm around 130 now, which is not much on a 6 ft frame. And it's true, what they say. The boobs are always the first to go.

Thus, I have seen both sides of the mountain. And while I haven't decided which side is greener, I will in fact discover the cure for the skinny small boobed syndrome. And it's going to start like this: Today is my first skinny boob syndrome post, and I'll share with you a secret which I am of course reluctant to do because you might go and buy it and I don't like it when other people steal my ideas.

In exchange for allowing you to copy me, you will email me with further skinny boob syndrome ideas. Yes? Good. Ok, let's get started.

Ladies, let me introduce you to Bordeaux Seamless. It's stretchy, comfy, seamless, made of some kind of super fun material that doesn't trigger intense sweating, and best of all-- it's like buying breasts and a shirt at the same time. Take for example this top:

No, that's not me and yes, she's probably got a cup size or two on me. HOWEVER, I almost sort of look like this in my new bordeaux seamless shirt! I swear to god! In fact, I am looking down at my deflated little poopsies right now and thinking my god, they look huge.

And here's the best part: it's not just that shirt! In fact, I bought the shirt to your left based solely on my experience with my first bordeaux seamless top which I picked up another bordeaux seamless top at a sample sale last year-- and my first bordeaux top was strapless. You don't have to have SBS to know that tube tops aren't exactly the best way to perk up a flat chest. If bordeaux can do it with a tube top, my friend, bordeaux can do it for you, too.

oh PS. since i'm using their picture, i do feel obligated to give you this link if you want to buy it. However, the biggest selection I could find is at Tee Zone, or some other stupid name like that.

ok that's it for today. i can't figure out where i got this picture but here's another of their tops. some of them are yoga inspired but others are dressier and would be appropriate for going out. like this one: