Purple will be the new pink!

Chris and I spent yesterday in personal purgatory: Christmas shopping in Union Square. The long lines, the herds of people shuffling along ever so slowly, the desperate search for just the right shade of green (it turns out that wearing pine green is akin to tattooing "LOSER" on your forehead this season...lime green, now That's HOT!). Happily, we accomplished most of what we set out to do.

I learned that Macy's salespeople are quite different from Nordstrom's salespeople. I've always heard that Nordstrom's has the best salestaff, as well as the best customer service policies (returns and such), but never gave it a second thought. But it all became so clear yesterday. At Nordstrom's, the salestaff were helpful, appeared as if from thin air right when you needed them, and actually told you if they didn't have what you were looking for (imagine!), and directed us to where we might find said item, even if it was a different department store.

On the other hand, none of the Macy's salespeople came over to help us, even as we looked them in the eye from 15 feet away. We were actually standing there, drumming our fingers on the counter, clearly ready to look at something in the case, and the salespeople just stood there talking to each other. We had to go over and ask them to open the case for us. And when we finally got someone to talk to us, she was foaming at the mouth to make the sale, even though she didn't have what we wanted. We want this in pine green, we'd say, and she'd point out greenish blues and pale blues and try to pass them off as green. Not so gaudy, we'd say, and she'd point us to what was obviously the least gaudy thing she had--though it was still blinged to the nines--and try to convince us that it was right for the person in mind, just because it's HOT and the biggest seller of the year. Thanks, but no.