Queen of Rambles

I love buying books off the internet, but that’s about it. You can’t mess up a book order. The book doesn’t have strange seams or a tight fitting middle. The color of the cover might be skewed, but it doesn’t matter. The words are the words are the words. You might hate the book, but that’s a risk you run no matter where you shop.

I hate buying anything else online. You never know what you’ll end up with.

A few weeks ago I ordered some black fabric to finish my quilt. I was impatient and wanted it NOW so I could sew like the mad fiend that I am, but it was on a slow boat from China and it took two weeks to get here. Inexcusable, with the inflated shipping rates I was charged.

As soon as the plastic envelope arrived in the mail, I snatched it up and ripped it open. I was chortling with glee. Chortling I tell you. Finally my pretty, pretty quilt would be finished and I could bask in my paper pieced glory (that’s the secret of my quilting success, not talent).

The contents of the envelope were completely unexpected. Gray. GRAY! Three yards of gray fabric. I am sure gray fabric has its uses, say as an impromptu noose for the person who made me believe it would be black, but gray fabric would not do in a jewel toned quilt. Not at all.

While waiting (not so) patiently for the fabric to arrive, I’d explored a little more of our new area and found a Hancock fabric a short fifteen minute drive away. I’ve heard that Hancock is supposed to be a step up from Jo-Anne’s yet not terribly expensive like the really professional quilting stores so I was excited to have an excuse to go spend money. We are on a budget and I even considered trying to dye the gray fabric black with Rit dye, but the ladies in my quilting community told me that was a terrible idea (which I had suspected anyway).

Off I went to have myself a little old-fashioned fun (seriously, I mean really old fashioned fun. Think Laura Ingalls in the dry goods shop, picking out fabric for her next Sunday dress. Can you imagine having two outfits in your closet that had to last a year? You’d better have some daggummed fun picking out the fabric.).

I think I must be a snob. I don’t want to be a snob, but the store gave me the willies. There were cardboard boxes sitting out everywhere, the hanging display quilts were just tops that hadn’t been quilted, the workers were not in any sort of uniform unless you count “maybe I’ll take a jog this afternoon” sweatpants as a uniform, things were all askew and there was trash on the floor. I don’t like to shop in stores like that. I like things to be neat and orderly and visually appealing. I know appearances can be deceiving, but an appealing display really does make a person feel like they are buying better quality products than a nasty display. A really nice display motivates people to buy more. Maybe I should be happy it was such a crap display.

Did you know I worked at a high end department store for a few months? I was a cologne salesgirl the summer after college. I used to roll my eyes at the store manager, but now I see he really knew his stuff. Every morning we would have an unofficial “inspection” to make sure we were all dressed appropriately. Women had to be wearing skirts and dress shoes. In my department we had to wear a black cape. We were encouraged to wear make-up and were able to make use of the make-up ladies on site. I learned a lot from that job. The manager would spend a lot of time walking around the store and pointing out when things were out of place. Do you know how hard it is to fix a fallen box of Tommy when everything is packed in tight and you have to basically tear apart your display to make everything perfect again? Now I totally understand why he was so particular.

After looking around the store, I realized why the store was a disaster area. Instead of normal employees, the owners had cut a deal with a nursing home to provide a work experience program for the patients. The three sweat suit clad ladies were not older. They were not even old. They were ancient. I fully expected to see an emergency paramedic standing by, ready to whiz into action at any second. I wanted to tell the lady cutting my fabric that she could take a break because she was getting a little winded. I really felt sorry for these ladies and hope they are working because they want to and not because they have to. Clearly, if the three ladies I saw are an accurate representation of the staff as a whole no one has the energy to make sure the store is spruced up.

The worst thing, by far, was the method of sales. I bought several different cuts of fabric because I am a fabric addict and I don’t know of a twelve-step program designed to help people like me. I’m used to the bolts of fabric being scanned. Scanning would terrify the little nursing home ladies, so the woman helping me had to painstakingly write the code number of each and every bolt of fabric on a little sheet. She couldn’t see very well. It was an exercise in the excruciating for an impatient person such as myself.

I don’t think I’ll be going back to that particular store, though I will admit that the fabric was a much nicer quality than what you get at Jo-anns. Too bad it was displayed in such an unappealing manner.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 9th, 2006 at 7:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.