Mannequin Or Dummy?

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Wednesday - July 08, 2009

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Man, this current economy is killing me. I don’t mean to make light of a very serious situation for most people, but even our family has been impacted by it. I’m grateful for what we have and that I have a great job making a pretty good living. We can’t take anything for granted these days.

I think, to ease the anxiety of it all, I have to look at the funnier side of life, even though it may have to do with some unpleasant situations. Laughing at yourself is good medicine, and believe me, I’ve been prescribing that medicine all my life.

One of those unpleasant situations for me, in good times and bad, is going shopping with my wife. These days we do more window-shopping than anything else, and while my wife rarely shops for herself, she is meticulous about what she buys for other people. That takes time - lots of time.

The reason window-shopping is such a drag is because there’s no payoff. In other words, I may wait for my wife a long time while she shops in order to buy nothing - just looking. Recently, she wanted me to wait around for her while she “shopped” in the ladies’ clothing section at Macy’s.

I would have no problem if this were Sears or City Mill, as I can window-shop in the tool department for hours. But she wanted to look around, which can translate to up to an hour.

Luckily, at the corner of the department were these two chairs arranged next to a couple of mannequins. I sat down and before you can say, “I need your opinion on this,” I was in a dead sleep. I had no idea how much time had passed when I awoke to something poking my arm. I turned my head in that direction and opened my eyes.

Standing there was a little boy who seemed startled when I woke up, and he turned and nearly ran away crying. As best I could tell, I think he thought I was a mannequin and was poking me to see if I was real. Geez, I probably traumatized the kid.

I told my wife what happened, and she simply laughed. I took the opening and threatened not to shop there with her again. Still groggy, I said, “Any store that would have me as a mannequin to model their wares needs to seriously look at their display merchandising program. I’m outta here!”

Naturally, my wife had to have the last word. She joked, “Yeah, what were they thinking? This isn’t the AARP Store!”