How does it work out that when you go to return one holey sweater at J. Jill, you walk out of the store with two new sweaters?? Nine days after discovering the little hole in my dusky inky blue J. Jill sweater the first day I wore it, I decided I'd better get back over there and return it . . . now or never. So, I boldly walked into the store and tried on a different sweater, totally different. I asked the sales lady how it looked. Then I said, I would like to exchange this blue sweater as the first time I wore it, I found this little hole. She had to bend way over the sleeve and scrutinize to find it. While she did that, I patted my sales receipt on the counter. She picked that up and said, This is the STORE copy. I said, Really? Then I fished around in my bag and produced a second receipt, the customer copy. She wanted to know how the store didn't end up with their copy. Beats me, I just stuff whatever they hand me into the bag, where it has remained ever since I walked out of the store the last time. She asked if it were okay with me if she kept the store copy. Fine and dandy, was my reply. This all just goes to prove that nothing I ever attempt is done easily nor without event.

AND, I hope the darling sales girl who waited on me doesn't get reprimanded. She was the greatest. It's all my fault anyhow. I was the last customer that night of inky blue and the store was closed but there I was and the girl talked me in to opening a charge card. So she was scrambling around for that. Honestly, I would love to work there, but I wouldn't be able to do the cash register, I am not kidding. Two years into it (well, there would be NO two years, as I would have been fired after the first two bungled transactions, which would have been my first two tries) I would still be apologizing to the customer, I'm so sorry it takes me so long, but you see I am NEW at this. And that would be true, after two years it would still FEEL new. My sister worked at White House Black Market and she caught on to the cash register. She had this young manager who was such a whiz, it was incredible. She was born with an MM, Math Mind. She could do returns and exchanges and sales and Sister's Discounts, no matter how layered and confusing, and do it in two seconds flat. And she was NEVER wrong. Not that I didn't say she was wrong, but, of course, I was wrong and she was right. She gave me a "look."

Reminds me of a friend I had, she told me the story how at McDonald's she INSISTED to the cashier that she was owed more change. The cashier said, No, you don't get more change. They argued back and forth. Cassie made a Federal Case, stomped up and down and called for the manager. Turns out SHE OWED McDonald's money. I said, What did you do, apologize? She said, No, I slunk out of there with my tail between my legs. Well, this all struck me as about the funniest thing I ever heard and I went into a tailspin of laughter. As a girl I know puts it, I was braying like some demented donkey with laughter. I guess I just could SO RELATE to what Cassie did. Honestly, we couldn't even do the simplest of mathematics, making change on a dollar. It really gives one a complex. So I love that movie Lucille Ball was in, I think it was Mame, where she tried to ring up a sale and it was all so utterly hopeless. In fact, once I read a guest column in the newspaper, a man wrote how he couldn't work the machine you slide your debit card in at the grocery store check-out. It was HILARIOUS. I read it multitudes of times and laughed harder each time. Because, of course, he was describing me. I wrote the paper about that article and they printed it.

So, I saw the neatest blue, brown and green print sweater, the "different" one mentioned above, and it jazzed up my jeans so much, that I got it. Then I got a red sweater like the inky blue. I DO love red. That's how come I walked away with two sweaters. And the price for two was just a little more than the price for one. So, since I don't comprehend math, I'm not going to try to figure it out, it just seems like I came out WAY ahead. And I compliment J. Jill for putting the customer first.

I met a neat sales lady in Nordstrom's, where I got sidetracked on the way to J. Jill. She was from Michigan. EVERYONE is from Michigan. She spent last summer in her cottage on a lake, which was way up in northern Michigan. But she knew about Watervliet in southern Michigan, where I used to summer on the lake, ha! That sounds funny. I never went there past age 12, which I don't understand. My grandmother didn't want us girls to marry someone from Watervliet, so we weren't allowed to go there past age 12. Not sure why she felt this way, because the Admiral of the Navy and anyone else you ever heard of who is famous or hugely important came from none other than . . . Watervliet, Michigan. Like a girl who was World Champion Baton Twirler, she came straight from the bowels of Watervliet. Like Bill Stewart, who only dated a VERY famous movie star who was begging to marry him. When I remember who that was, I will let you know. Someone like Elizabeth Taylor. But not her.

Uh-oh, I'm hooked on a Numbrix, that Ask Marilyn invented. I did the puzzle in Parade every Sunday and then I found out they put one online every day. Lately they are classified as EXPERT. I get them done, but not in the 15 seconds the hotshots do (they list the fastest puzzle solvers). I do it in 10 minutes. But still, I do it.

Okay, old beat up KEM hasn't felt so good lately. I'm wondering if my sinus trouble is connected to the room at a college where I go on Wednesday nights for Mike's Singing class. I mentioned that to my choir director tonight and he said, I wouldn't doubt it. He is familiar with this campus. I didn't have the heart to say, And I think the church sanctuary makes me sick, too. I see the writing on the wall, I'm going to have to stay home ALL THE TIME, except when I go to J. Jill. Unable to go out, my blog will dry up, because I won't have any new stories. BUT, I still have plenty of old stories that I want to drizzle out of my fingertips.

Cha-Cha,
KEM