tell you my name
I returned a dress (purchased online, naturally) to the Michigan Avenue LOFT store. Save a stamp! Give a store clerk easy tasks to do! If you have time to lean you have time to clean process my return.
Clerk: Anything wrong with it?
Me: No. It just looks weird on me.
Clerk: I have to tell you something. This dress looks weird on everyone.
Me: Thank you for saying that!
Clerk: I’m serious! I’ve processed so many returns for it. Everyone who works here tried it on because it was so cute and not a single person bought it. Cute idea, bad execution.
Me: Maybe it’s cursed! An ancient curse! Cursed dress!
Clerk: …uh, maybe. Credit back to your Visa?
I’m currently obsessed with the idea of cursed objects because of my Wine Ordeal. My parents were going on a road trip to visit a relative, and my mom asked me to buy this certain bottle of wine, with an older, weirder version of our last name on the label, to bring to said relative. The wine is only sold at Eataly; even Binny’s would have to special-order it. I work near(ish) the Eataly on Ohio.
(Keep in mind that my work likes to keep me so busy that I usually cram a hastily microwaved Amy’s burrito in my mouth at lunchtime and only go out of the building if I have an errand. For instance: this wine thing.)
Day 1: I go out at lunchtime to get some Trader Joe’s groceries, thinking I will stop and get the wine on the way back to the office. I did not. I realized that in the elevator up to my office. D’oh!
Day 2: Shit is crazy. I spend lunch chained to a content management system.
Day 3: I head out to Eataly. Hello! I am here! Security guard at the door says that they are “closed for a private event.” In the middle of a weekday. Is the private event all over the store? Apparently so. Can I buy some wine? No I cannot. I go back to work.
Day 4: Hooray for me! I buy the wine! It is twenty dollars (my mom will give me the money, but it had better be good because (a) the family name is on it [kind of] and (b) good wine can be had for half that). I put it in a tote bag along with some work papers. Then, and this is important, I go out drinking with one of my best friends. This part is also important: she drinks beer, and I decide to drink wine. (Not the wine I just bought.) I love wine. Me and Malbec, we get along so well. It is usually pretty easy for me to say no thank you, I have had enough beer. It is not so easy to say that to wine. I’m not sure I’ve ever said it to wine. My friend is fun and I love her. (And wine!) I stay out much later than intended and rideshare home.
Day 5: I am getting ready for work and realize I no longer have the tote bag. With the (cursed) wine and (more importantly) the work shit. The bar does not have it. I contact the Uber driver, using the “lost item” thingy on the app, and we talk on the phone and he says he can deliver it to me that evening. There’s a $20 charge or something like that. I need the work-related stuff and I am fond of the tote bag, so fine. This Uber driver now knows my actual phone number (slight yikes). But I am grateful. I thank him.
Evening of day 5: Uber driver texts that he’s near my house, I say I’ll come out and grab my stuff and once again, give effusive thanks. He pulls up, gets out, and hands me the tote bag. The other stuff is there, but it is obvious there is no wine.
“Make sure everything’s in there,” the Uber driver says, giving me a creepy smile. I was suddenly very very Done with this guy and did not want to give him the satisfaction of letting on that I knew he had stolen my wine. “Yup, seems like!” I practically yelled. “Goodbye!” I did not add “forever.” I did not add “asshole.” He (wisely) did not try to get the $20 charge for delivering the lost item; the $20 wine makes us even, I guess. Asshole.
Day 6: I buy the goddamned wine (again). I carry it home in that same tote bag, and I never once let go of the tote bag strap on the El. My mom drops by to pick up the wine. I point to it from across the kitchen and make her literally take it out of the house herself, because clearly the next step is that it shatters on the kitchen floor and I lose an eye to the flying glass.
—mimi smartypants has seen enough to eye you, but too much to try you.