by Freeman Hall
Every item needed to be probed closely for flaws.
Lorraine would immediately reject any merchandise that had the slightest scratch, dent, or thread missing. If something was a little off, a little not quite right, a little shop-worn, Lorraine Goldberg, Shoposaurus Carnotaurus, roared louder than King Kong.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAH DO YOU SEE THAT?? THERE’S A CREASE ON THE BOTTOM OF THIS KATE SPADE HAND-BAG! I don’t want it. Take it away. Get me a new one!”
Yes, everything Lorraine bought needed to be pristine, in mint condition.
If I was able to fulfill her neurotic need for perfection by finding a brand-new Kate Spade in the stockroom that was still wrapped in the plastic and tissue it was shipped in, she glowed like a child about to unwrap a pile of birthday presents.
One time Lorraine dragged me to the Clarins Cosmetics counter to stock up on ten jars of foot-soothing cream during a Clarins free-gift promotion. She wanted enough cream to last her for five years. Or maybe it was for Mitzy’s paws.
The Clarins salesgirl, who looked like a timid ten-year-old, was completely astounded when Lorraine announced she was buying ten jars of foot-soothing cream. She quickly added that I was her personal shopper and I’d be ringing them up in handbags.
“You want ten jars?” the Clarins Girl said, her eyes growing wide.
“Did I stutter?” said Lorraine, all bitchy, “I want ten jars of foot-soothing lotion and four free gifts and gift bags.”
The Clarins Girl raised her brows over her wide eyes.
“We only give one free gift with a purchase of one hundred dollars or more. . . .”
I cut Clarins Girl off before Shoposaurus Carnotaurus bit her head off. “The four free gifts have already been approved by your manager, Melinda. Ms. Goldberg is one of The Big Fancy’s best customers, especially in cosmetics.”
No longer talking, the Clarins Girl quickly began putting stacks of boxed creams in a bag. Lorraine stopped her immediately, “Hold on a minute there, princess. I need to check every jar. I’ve had fuckin’ problems before. Some of these bitches have a sinkhole in the middle. They should be filled to the fuckin’ top, with a swirl.”
We all began opening jars of foot cream. To our amazement and disappointment, Lorraine was correct. Many of the jars had slight dips in the center.
“YOU SEE THAT!” Lorraine howled, “SINKHOLE! SINKHOLE! SINKHOLE!”
We opened twelve jars of soothing foot cream between the three of us. Only two passed inspection.
Lorraine found the first perfect one.
She fondled the jar as if it was a scientific wonder.
“You see,” she said softly, pointing her shiny red fingernail at the cream inside, “It has a fuckin’ swirl that peaks. There is no dip, no sinking. It’s completely fuckin’ full. All the rest of these are defective and should be sent back. Every single motherfucking one of them has a sinkhole! They’re all shit!”
Lorraine looked up at the girl while screwing the lid on the jar of foot-soothing cream that had passed inspection. “You need to go in the back and bring out more. Each one must be checked.”
The Clarins Girl jumped to the task, quickly realizing it was best not to anger a Shoposaurus.
“Absolutely. I’ll be just a moment, ma’am.”
“I know she thinks I’m a fuckin’ nut job,” Lorraine leaned in and said to me. “But if I’m buying ten jars of foot-soothing cream at sixty-five dollars each, every goddamn cocksucking jar had better be filled and have a perfect fuckin’ swirl at the top.”
“Right you are, Lorraine; I couldn’t agree more,” I said, chuckling at her lunacy.
Lorraine was correct in her assessment of what other people at The Big Fancy thought about her. They thought she was a nut job.
I had customers and fellow salespeople both exclaim, “How can you wait on that woman? She’s awful! She’s treating you so badly!”
I just smiled at them and replied, “Her bark is worse than her bite. She’s actually one of my best customers.”
Most didn’t know that sometimes Lorraine turned into a ferocious prehistoric beast with other salespeople just to entertain me because I found it wildly amusing.
Yes, I will burn in Retail Hell.
As the proud owner of one of the most ravenous Shoposaurus Carnotaurus in all of Los Angeles, I had no choice but to tame or be killed.
Several months after I started waiting on her, Lorraine and I had our Survival of the Fittest Death Match.
The showdown was about Spring Green bath towels.
I’d already sold her five of them. But because Lorraine adored the color and brand so much, she feared they would not last the next nuclear blast and panicked, wanting me to secure her five more.
They were sold out at all The Big Fancy stores, and the buyers refused to order just five towels. I hit a wall. No more Spring Green towels. Anywhere. And Lorraine would not let up. Her need for more Spring Green towels had gone beyond the level of shopping junkie. During a department rush one afternoon, she went full-on Shoposaurus Carnotaurus crazy over the phone as I watched Douche and Cammie ring up sales.
Lorraine screamed in my ear, “I’VE GOT TO HAVE THOSE FUCKING SPRING GREEN TOWELS YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE COCKSUCKER!”
That’s it. No more. I’ve listened to this Shoposaurus Carnotaurus roar long enough. Time to let her have it.
The foul mouth of Lorraine Goldberg began pouring out of me!
“You know what Lorraine,” I replied heatedly, “I am NOT one of your fucking asshole cocksuckers. It’s totally fucking busy in here and I’m losing sales listening to you bitch and moan about getting more stupid fucking Spring Green towels when you already have five. I’ve had enough of your shit! I can’t fucking take it any more! You OBNOXIOUS FUCKING BITCH! FUCK YOU!”
I hung up on her.
Shaking with anger, I retreated to the stockroom. At any second I expected a call from Suzy Davis-Johnson. I planned to tell Satan I could no longer wait on Lorraine. Enough was enough. I sat and medicated myself with Ruffles potato chips.
Then Cammie called on the stockroom phone.
“Lorraine’s calling and she’s really sorry. Talk to her. Give her a second chance,” she said, sounding like a marriage counselor.
Minutes later, Lorraine and I were back to normal. Shoposaurus and greedy Retail Slave.
“I’m sorry I called you a fucking asshole cocksucker,” she said.
“And I’m sorry I called you an obnoxious fucking bitch,” I replied.
After that pinnacle moment, Lorraine was in the palm of my hand and I could do no wrong. By confronting her in her own dirty-mouthed way, I’d won her over.
But the name-calling didn’t stop.
It transcended bitchiness and became our unique way of showing friendship for each other.
“Lorraine, you’re such a backward fucking whore!” I would say after watching her terrorize a new salesperson in the Kitchen Access department.
“Fuck you times two, Freeman, and get that deluxe Crock-Pot down off the shelf so I can see it better, you cocksucker,” she would respond, not even looking at me.
Having Lorraine Goldberg as my personal customer may have caused me perspiration, exhaustion, and agitation at times, but there was always a sale at the end.
Not only did she drag me all over the store, grabbing everything from bras to bedding, but she would buy duplicates of things she loved, sometimes spending thousands of dollars. I guess a lonely woman in her fifties with a successful warehouse business has a lot of extra cash to burn.
Another perk to being Lorraine’s little Retail Slave was that she rarely returned anything I sold her. This was a tremendous advantage because some of the other crazy customers The Big Fancy threw at me didn’t keep what they bought. There was nothing worse than being deep-fried by a lunatic shopper for several hours just to watch her return everything two days later.
The Big Fancy’s Once a Year Sale was Lorraine’s favorite time of the year. She’d call me on t
he phone, so excited it sounded as if she’d just won the lottery.
“FRAYMAN, FRAAAAAYMAN! I GOT THE SALE CATALOG! ARE YOU READY! I’VE GOT MY LIST! THERE’S A CRAPLOAD OF STUFF I WANT!”
Within minutes she’d dictate a list to me that was three scratch-pad pages long and included clothes, shoes, bedding and bath products, cosmetics, kitchen products, and, of course, handbags.
Though I was blessed by the retail gods to have my very own Shoposaurus spending so much without returning, helping her during a sale would nearly kill me when I went to retrieve those three pages of Big Fancy merchandise.
Countless phone calls turned my ears sweaty as she pondered what she wanted next: “I just love the royal blue blouse on page six, but on page seventeen they’re showing a similar blouse in cadet blue? What do you think? Should I get both? What’s the difference between royal and cadet, anyway? Why the FUCK are they showing two blouses so close in color?”
After scouring the catalog, Lorraine made several trips into the store. I’d drag merchandise out of one stockroom after another all over the store so she could preview all the sale merchandise from different departments. After hours of deliberation, Lorraine picked out enough sale crap to dress half the women at the Los Angeles Mission shelter.
Judy always got slightly aggravated with me because a large section of the handbag stockroom had to be cleared to accommodate the mountain of clothing, cosmetics, and shoes Lorraine wanted to have held till the sale, but what could she say? Nothing. It’s all for Lorraine Goldberg. One of Big Fancy’s high rollers. A friend of Suzy Davis-Johnson.
On sale day, Lorraine returned to the store in full-on Shoposaurus mode. She was ready to shop and thrilled out of her mind. “FRAAAAAAAAAYMAN! FRAAAAAAAAAYMAN! I’M HERE FOR THE ONCE A YEAR SALE! I’M READY TO BUY!”
She’d gaze upon her loot like she was looking at it for the first time. Then the shopping would start all over again, with Lorraine covering every inch of the entire store. Hard-core.
Looking for more bargains. Looking for more stuff to buy.
Several hours later, after the Shoposaurus had plundered, all of her treasures had to be rung up. By me.
And ringing up Lorraine during the sale was always a confusing, exhausting mess. Prices were wrong. Tags missing. Loose threads found. Stains discovered. Lorraine also demanded that every single item be boxed in Big Fancy gift boxes and wrapped in tissue, and the clothing put neatly in plastic garment covers.
“I’m spending two grand, I want the fucking works!”
I came to know more about Lorraine than possibly any other person on earth, including her doctors. I knew every size she wore: 12 wide in shoes; 12–14 long in slacks; L or XL in blouses; 42B in bras; 9 in panties; and L in gloves. She hated dresses, cheap fabric, and tight fits. She wasn’t big on fine jewelry but preferred gold to silver. I knew the details of all the cosmetic products she used from six different lines. Lorraine’s handbags had to be roomy with handles, and she rarely bought shoulder styles (unless one was an It Bag of the moment). Wallets had to be checkbook-style. Her favorite colors were green, blue, and RED! Lots and lots of red. Lorraine loved scarves and blouses in bright colors with loud, unique designs and bold prints. She had a fetish for ultra-soft bath towels, 1,000-thread-count sheets that don’t wrinkle, and the newest kitchen gadget, though she rarely cooked. And the woman would buy anything with a French poodle on it because it reminded her of Mitzy.
With the bounty of goods I sold to Lorraine Goldberg day in and day out, I did wonder how one single woman could buy so much stuff.
Where did it all go?
She couldn’t possibly wear or use everything she bought.
Lorraine once told me there was a room in her condo for all of “Freeman’s Things.” This is what she called everything I sold her. Freeman’s Things.
Yes, that creeps me out.
Because she bought more than she needed and it was impossible for her to actually wear or use everything, it all ended up in this so-called special room. I never saw the Freeman’s Things room, but she used to tell me it was piled high with gift boxes and bags of stuff I’ve sold her. It often made me nervous to think that one day, she could just flip out and decide that it all needed to go back to The Big Fancy.
Back up the U-Haul truck, Lorraine Goldberg is returning Freeman’s Things. Somebody call an ambulance! 441064 is going into cardiac arrest.
Although she spent tens of thousands of dollars with me and had a room overflowing with Ferragamo shoes and Fendi handbags, the most dramatic thing Shoposaurus Carnotaurus ever did for me at the Store had nothing to do with her need for designer feed.
It had to do with a Nasty-Ass Thief — my term for the scummy, no-good, shoplifting fraudulent customers who streamed into The Big Fancy on a daily basis.
One afternoon, while Lorraine was in the throes of seeing a new group of Ferragamo bags, a short, skinny, young druggie girl so strung out that she was shaking stumbled up to the Corral.
The Druggie Nasty spoke incoherently, wanting to return a $900 Burberry tote that she had no receipt for. The Burberry bag wasn’t from our store, and the style wasn’t in any of the recent catalogues or the Store’s POS system. It had to be fake, jacked from another store, or stolen from someone’s closet.
After telling Nasty several times there was nothing I could do, she turned ugly and screamed:
“I’m not going anywhere until I get help . . . here at this store . . . with this bare-berry purse . . . you have to do it . . . NOW!” she said, swaying like a willow.
I felt the heat of Lorraine’s stare, as she watched Nasty and me argue about her not being able to return the bag.
When Nasty got bitchy and said I didn’t know my merchandise, Shoposaurus moved in.
And stood in front of her.
“Miss, he SAID, he can’t fuckin’ help you any further,” Lorraine said looking down at her. “You can fuckin’ leave now. I’m next in line and I need him to help me.”
The Nasty-Ass Druggie Thief sighed and looked up to the heavens. The several-foot difference between them did not seem to bother her in the least.
“Was I talkin’ to you, grandma? Stay out of it, you wrinkled old saggy BITCH.”
Believe it or not, at least twenty seconds passed before the Shoposaurus Carnotaurus began to roar. In those twenty seconds, I watched Lorraine’s pale skin turn a heated pink while the lids over her brown eyes began to flutter. Her orange lips snarled, and her hands tightened around her Fendi. Then she unleashed on Nasty like a meteorite hitting the Earth:
“LOOK, YOU DIRTY LITTLE COCKSUCKING WHORE, DON’T EVEN TRY FUCKING WITH ME, SHITBAG! I HAVE THE MOTHERFUCKING MALL POLICE ON SPEED DIAL, AND I’LL TAKEYOUR BITCH ASS OUT FASTER THAN YOU CAN GET YOUR FUCKING PIECE-OF-SHIT CAR STARTED, YOU SKINNY LITTLE FUCKING CUNT!”
Nasty-Ass Druggie Thief was stunned. Speechless.
And maybe a little scared.
Lorraine had to be at least three of her. She would have squashed Nasty flat into the carpet with her size-12-wide Ferragamo-clad foot.
Lorraine glared at Nasty, breathing hard, “I SUGGEST YOU GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE BEFORE I REALLY GET FUCKING PISSED OFF!”
Shaking like an A-bomb about to detonate, Lorraine quickly opened her Fendi and began digging for what I guessed was her cell, while unloading one swear word after another.
Nasty-Ass Druggie Thief swayed a few times and then stuffed the Burberry back in her tattered shopping bag. She zigzagged away without a single exit word.
“Lorraine,” I said, “I really appreciate you coming to my defense, but you have to be careful with some of these people. You never know what they’ll do.”
She rolled her eyes, let out a Shoposaurus cackle, and replied, “Fuck that little gang-banging crack whore. I’ve got a fucking can of pepper spray in here and a forty-five in the glove compartment of my car. I’ll blow her scrawny ass to kingdom come. Fucking asshole cocksucker, she can suck my motherfucking dick.”
Still bu
bbling with adrenaline, seconds later my badass Shoposaurus Carnotaurus found what she was digging for in her satchel.
“HERE IT IS!” Lorraine yelled out, holding up a little can of pepper spray like it was air freshener. “I’m fully licensed and trained. I know how to bring anyone down to their fucking knees, shoot it right in their cocksucking motherfucking eyeballs!”
“Lorraine, you continue to shock the shit out of me!”
“C’mon,” she said, dropping the pepper spray back into her Fendi, “Let’s go get a latte, I’m buyin’. And I need a goddamn cigarette.”
Monique Jonesworthy, Nasty-Ass Thief
Like handbags, Nasty-Ass Thieves come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. There are men, women, teenagers, children, white, Black, Asian, Latino, Russian, Middle Eastern, European, and yes, even Alien. They are fat, skinny, young, old, gay, straight, ritzy, trashy, pretty, ugly, poor, and yes, even Warren Buffet rich.
The faces of Nasty-Ass Thieves are many. There’s no discrimina-tion on their wretched bus bound for Retail Hell’s sinful abyss.
In fact, this melting pot of evildoers could easily form their own worldwide coalition and call it United Nasty-Ass Nations. They would hold “conventions” next door to malls and Big Fancy Stores, and offer in-store training seminars on how to pilfer like a pro.
Monique Jonesworthy was a member of the United Nasty-Ass Nations. A black woman in her thirties with a gap between her two front teeth, Monique Jonesworthy was a potpourri of bogusness, deemed one of Big Fancy’s Most Wanted Nasty-Ass Thieves by many throughout the store. If she wasn’t shoplifting, she was buying with stolen credit cards or bad checks. And all of her returns were problematic, with no receipts, wrong receipts, missing receipts, tampered receipts, or torn price tags.
“I want to return this purse,” Monique always said, not knowing or caring that a thirteen-hundred-dollar Fendi satchel is not a purse, it’s a fucking handbag.
What she’d say after that depended on the “character” she’d adopted for the day.
Monique Jonesworthy had completely eluded The Big Fancy security team by cleverly changing her look every time she showed up at the store. Using hats, wigs, sunglasses, and clothes, she had more disguises than Jennifer Garner in Alias.
