That's Life 12/18
I told a salesperson in a store today that I was cheap. “No,” she said, “You’re thrifty.” I shook my head. “Nope,” I corrected her. “I’m cheap.” That’s why my recent sporting of a Gucci fanny-pack is ironic, laughable and completely out of character.
Let’s get something straight, however: it isn’t mine. I’ve been borrowing it from someone. And let’s get something else straight — Gucci fanny-packs, somehow or another, are cool. I’ve never received so many compliments on anything I’ve worn or owned before like I have this. Of course, still being true to myself, I was using a Ziploc bag as a wallet and tucking it into the fanny-pack — too cheap to buy something more adult-like. And it was going fine until a salesperson in another store looked at me with horror, disbelief all over his face, at the incongruity between the cheap Ziploc and the expensive fanny-pack. He let me know just how ridiculous he thought it was.
It was time, however, to return the Gucci and buy my own fanny-pack. I ordered a nice one (not Gucci nice but nice anyway) from a store and it arrived at my home. I was excited to open the box — I had been looking forward to receiving it. Besides that it was my Chanukah present, the Gucci one was making me nervous. I opened the box, unpacked the pack and tried it on. But there was a problem — it didn’t fit.
Having recently given birth, I am still losing the baby weight and so I am not at my thinnest. That said, the strap on the fanny-pack does not expand to my waist size. It seems like it could fit a woman who wears a size 8 or smaller and, while that might be my goal, I am not yet there. So I called the company.
“Despite the humiliating nature of this question,” I said to Courtney, the service representative who had the misfortune of answering my call, “I would like to know if an extension strap is available for the fanny-pack — it just doesn’t fit me.” They did not carry such an item, she explained, and said that there were no larger replacement straps either that could be swapped for this one. Now I was embarrassed and disappointed.
