Nobody Wants My Money

Yesterday, husband and I set off at sparrow fart with the primary mission of scoring some hot buys at a restaurant equipment auction. If you’ve never been to one (and chances are you haven’t) you won’t know that restaurant auctions are an exercise in hurry up and wait. You rush over to the warehouse early enough to go through and review all the items in the auction, and scribble notes on the ones you are interested in. Then you sit (in a warehouse as cold and dark as a mausoleum) and wait until those items came up for bid. This auction featured more than 400 items, started at 10 AM and wound up around 3 PM. At the end of the day, we had one vintage chest freezer to show for five boring, chilly hours. For whatever reason, everything else we bid on shot beyond our pocketbook in a big hurry. At least they fed us…Costco pastries and coffee in the morning, free pizza and sodas mid-day. I’m happy with the purchase we made, but it didn't seem like a lot to show for five hours of freezing and beating the diet to death.

After the auction, we moseyed over to the nearby high class shopping mall. Because I had by God walked out of the house that morning determined to spend some money, and that compulsion had been nowhere near satisfied by our meager success at the auction. My wardrobe is in need of a bit of Spring…I thought I might have some luck at JCP or one of the satellite shops. The first store we hit was Penney’s, and as I broke the plane of the ladies’ department, I felt like a stranger in a strange land. My eyes were assailed by more psychedelic-bright, cheaply made (as in falling apart on the hangers) apparel than I’ve seen since I was thirteen years old, trying to stretch my babysitting bucks at K-Mart. Everything on the racks looked like the flimsiest of lingerie; lingerie created to fit miniscule Asian women, to boot. I am no behemoth, and the few pieces I took to the fitting room made me look like an oversized, flabby matron feverishly attempting to look like my thirteen-year-old daughter. I could only guess what this stuff would look like on a middle-aged woman of average size.

Figuring that JC Penney must have gone over to the dark side, I shook the seawater off my boots as I stepped through the mall entrance. I was on my way to the next major department store, one that has a reputation for being more upscale than Jacques Pennois. To my dismay, I encountered the same loud, cheap, ugly clothes draped over every counter and hanger at Meier & Frank as I had at Penney’s. And, as at JCP, every stitch had a label that proclaimed, "Made in India" or Vietnam, or Indonesia… The loudest, cheapest, and ugliest came from China. To the husband trailing behind me through the aisles, I exclaimed, "I haven’t seen so many cheap, ugly clothes since the sixties."

I practically ran screaming from M & F, heading for a smaller chain store where I have been buying clothes for the last fifteen years. And, of course, I was met with still more of the flimsy, floaty, cheapy lingerie cum daywear that the powers that be have deemed we all WILL wear this season. I turned on my heel and stalked out of yet another shop with husband in tow, shaking my head in disbelief. "Is it me, or does all this stuff really look like underwear???" Even the husband, who enjoys seeing me wear as little as possible, and certainly less than is seemly for a woman my age, agreed it all looked like something more appropriate to some cheap ho on the backstreets of Hong Kong than to middle-class, slightly paunchy American women looking for a little seasonal lift. I pointed into the crowds milling through the mall. "Look," I said. "Do you see anyone walking around actually wearing any of this stuff?" Not even the teens were dressed in the crap that dominated every display window.

And I was really getting angry. Here I was, at an upscale shopping mall, and I couldn’t find a stitch of clothing that was appropriate to my age or my pocketbook. If I had wanted poorly made, smelly, wrinkled clothes that had obviously just been unpacked from a cargo container, I would have gone to Walmart. Unfortunately, it seems all American retailers, even the "classy" ones that presumably do not share Walmart’s exact demographic, have decided to subscribe to Sam Walton’s credo of price over quality. And are flocking offshore to get it.

I am probably crankier than most people about crappy Asian imports, since my husband’s job will most likely become a casualty of "free trade" with Asia. Goods can be got from Asian suppliers for a small fraction of what they cost from domestic sources. That is, if there were any domestic sources left. The textile mills of the southeast have been devastated by the flood of cheap goods from overseas. My husband’s company, which used to be a factory that cut and sewed home fashions (decorative pillows, bedding, and draperies) has, out of necessity, turned into little more than an import house. Dozens of the factory workers have been put out of work. It’s only a matter of time before my husband’s job follows theirs into oblivion.

And I have heard stories that would stand your hair on end, about the condition of some of these imports when they arrive in port. Merchandise that arrives soaked, moldy, and smelling either of fish or diesel fuel from the hold of the ship. Goods so unbelievably and vilely soiled, presumably from slovenly sanitation in the Asian factories, that they had to be dry-cleaned before being bagged and shipped to the customer. And don’t get me started on the broken promises, botched designs, unmatched dye lots, and "cash before production" policy. At one time, I believed that the American work ethic had deteriorated to the point of nonexistence. But hearing some of the stories husband comes home with, I know for certain that American companies would not get away with the crap these Asian exporters are pulling. They are flooded with our business; have more, in fact, than they need or can handle. It doesn’t matter to them if they botch an order or completely screw a customer. If he takes his business elsewhere, there are ten more in line behind him to take his place. Oh, yes…they can get you what you want for that absolutely rock-bottom price. But we American consumers seem to have forgotten that ancient wisdom of "You get what you pay for…."

So the next time you’re about to pick up that $9.00 pair of jeans or that $15.00 bedspread at Walmart, give a little thought to where it came from, where it might have been, and which of your neighbors might not be working anymore so that you can save a few bucks on something that will most likely fall apart in the washing machine.