We have suffered an outrage, my little circle of friends and I. An ethical outrage.

We’ve had our hearts broken by our favorite consignment shop…and while I know lots worse is happening to people every minute and this wouldn’t even make the Top Ten of Bad Things that happened, probably even on my street, still…when your heart is broken, your heart is broken.

OK, about this consignment shop. Shopping here is actually lots more fun than shopping at regular stores–mostly because you never know what you’ll find, and most of the time you come home with something that you probably wouldn’t have ever even looked at in a “real” store. Last winter I bought a faux-shearling coat there FOR TWENTY DOLLARS that I loved so much I couldn’t wait for winter to come again, just so I could wear it and think again about how it had only cost twenty dollars.

And I got a red cashmere sweater that I never would have bought–not in RED, at least. But it’s fine…it’s more than fine. It’s soft and bright, and in the store, I probably would have gone for the boring blue one or the white one, but hey this one is RED. It announces itself. And it was FIFTEEN DOLLARS, but it’s real cashmere and doesn’t even have any of those little pills yet on it.

I could go on. I’ve been shopping there for years, and most of the really good things in my closet came from there–and then every now and then, when I’m organized, I pile things in a box and take them down there and trade them in and get new stuff.

It’s like the best thing there is, retail shopping-wise. 

Until my heart got broken, that is.

So here’s how it happened. First of all, the rule at this shop is that when an item has been there for 30 days, it then goes on sale for half price. This, of course, even makes consignment shopping MORE fun. You go in there, fall in love with something–but then sometimes you just have to take the chance that it will be reduced. It’s like a little gambling game you’re playing, the thrill of the deal.

And you might lose. I have lost very many times, and kicked myself HARD over not having the good sense to buy something immediately and pay the full price for it.  

So–oh yes, back to how it happened: my friend Leslie fell three-quarters in love with a coat there a few weeks ago. I say three-quarters in love because there wasn’t really a question of paying full price for it. She loved it, but she wasn’t going all lovesick about it. It was a perfectly wonderful, kind of Mary Poppins-ish coat–long and black with kind of an indent at the waist, which looked divine on Leslie. But $68! We agreed it looked great on her, but it was too much. 

AND it was going to go on sale in only two weeks from the date we discovered it, so it seemed, all in all, worth it to wait this one out. Only then, as often happens, we both became a little obsessed with the coat. Leslie couldn’t stop thinking about it. She went in to visit it a few times, just to make sure it was still there. And I stopped in once or twice, too, just to see it once again and say hello to it and “I hope I see you soon, in Leslie’s closet.”

Then, on the day before it was to drop to $34, we both drove by the consignment shop with the intention of going in just one more time, just to make sure. The store had a CLOSED sign in the window–no customers, but you could see the workers doing renovations inside.

Had the coat survived right up until the last possible moment, with no one plunking down $68? Maybe it had!

Leslie called me that night. She had an important meeting the next morning–but she wondered if I had the time to go by when the store opened and buy the coat for her. “If it’s not there, don’t worry about it,” she said. “But I really hope it is.”

Well, I couldn’t wait. I went to the gym early in the morning and left in time to get to the consignment shop before it opened. It seemed imperative to be the first customer through the door! I tell you, I was psyched for this. I sat in the car until they turned the sign to OPEN, and then hurried in. And–yay!–there was the coat, hanging near the cash register.

“Oh!” I said. “Wonderful!! It’s here! That coat–Leslie’s coat…”

The owner, Kristin, said, ”Oh, that coat is reserved. You can’t have it.”

“Reserved?” I said. “Really? Oh, no, I didn’t realize people can call in and reserve items that are going on sale.”

Kristin said, “Well, as it happens, the person who wants it didn’t call in. She actually came into the store and reserved it.”

“But when?” I said. “It just went on sale three minutes ago.”

So, okay, I didn’t say that. Instead I said something like, “Oh, my friend Leslie is going to be so disappointed. She really wanted that coat so much.”

She said, “Well, it’s reserved. Too bad. The other woman was first.” And she walked away. End of conversation.

NOW HOW COULD SHE BE FIRST IF THE COAT WAS SUPPOSEDLY FULL PRICE UNTIL JUST THAT MOMENT?

After I left, I coudn’t decide if I should just tell Leslie the coat was already sold and leave it at that. But of course, I was so mad by the time I talked to her later in the afternoon that I spilled out the whole unjust story.

And then Leslie was so upset that she actually drove to the store, where, to make matters feel even worse, the coat was still hanging behind the cash register. She tried in her very nice way to find out for herself what had happened. (Leslie is sort of friendly with Kristin in a way that I’ve never been able to be. Kristin doesn’t seem to remember me from time to time; we always have to start over at the beginning of our acquaintanceship. You know how that is sometimes; I’m sort of invisible to her.)

So Leslie explained how badly she wanted the coat, and Kristin, without ever saying she was sorry OR that the other woman was her friend, just kept saying, “Well, this woman really, really wanted it!” as though that made the difference.

Now here’s the thing. Obviously the consignment business belongs to the shop owner, and she can sell the pieces to whoever she pleases. And if, as likely happened, her BFF came in and said, “Oh, I adore that coat–when it comes on sale, if it’s not already taken, please hold it for me,” and she did–well, I might have done the same thing for a friend. I could see that happening.

BUT…it’s also true that the consignment business is a system of trust. When we bring in our clothing for her to sell, we trust her to set the price fairly and then to be honest about when it sold, and then to divide the money as we’ve agreed. Nobody checks up on her. Nobody says, “Saaaay, why did you mark my Aunt Lucy’s trousers at $5 when you could have gotten $20 for them?” And nobody EVER says, “Gee, I really thought that silk blouse I brought in sold for full price, and you’re telling me it hung around here until it went so far down you just had to donate it?

I’m just saying.  

Until now, I’ve trusted her to do the right thing: to set the prices fairly and to split the money the way she’s supposed to.

And now…well, now, I wonder if she doesn’t cut corners, and play favorites with the customers.

Because it IS a system of trust, I think she has to be extra careful not to have it look as though she’d not playing by the rules she set. She has to be scrupulously honest so that we all feel taken care of. The used clothing business, after all, can turn pretty tawdry if you’re not careful. There’s a certain psychology to it. 

Maybe, as someone said, her only real mistake was not putting the coat in the back room where Leslie and I couldn’t see it still there when we came in to buy it. Or maybe it would have been better if she’d said to us, “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry! But my friend wanted that coat so badly, and I didn’t realize anybody else was looking for it, too!” Maybe that would have helped. I don’t know.

But now…well, cashmere sweaters and faux shearling coats or not, I can’t help but feel she’s breached our trust. And Leslie is now saying she doesn’t ever want to shop there ever again. 

What do you think? Should we: (1)  write her a letter explaining how disgruntled we are, (2) just stop going there…or (3) take this as a sign that the world runs in crooked little ways sometimes, and just put things on reserve if we want them next time?

I really, really want to know what you think.

  

Technorati tags: ,