At Least Give Her Credit for Trying

There is nothing like standing by a cash register with your prospective purchases and learning that your credit is not good--unless it is spending two hours unsnarling the skein of mishaps.

I went to a department store in the Santa Anita Fashion Mall to find something crisp and cool to wear in La Quinta. This is the time of year when everything in the closet looks scratchy and feels like something a monk into self-mortification might slip on.

I found a place to park after just three circuits of the parking area and went in the store. The petite section is on the second floor. Petite is a size classification for people who are short. Clothing manufacturers have finally almost adjusted to the existence of women over 21 years of age being short. (Petites are often full of bows and ruffles and sparklies. They look as if they were designed for women who squeal and say “Oooh!” a lot.)

I wandered through the racks of clothes looking for the perfect garment to make me look tall and willowy.

After a few minutes, a smiling young woman came up and asked if she could help me. I told her I was looking for tops and pants to wear on a trip where it would be warm in the daytime and cool in the evening.

My friends all seem to have handsome sweaters in beautiful colors made of cloud-puff yarn. I have a couple that look as if they should be given to the dog to use as a blanket; those two and an Aran Islands sweater I bought in Ireland that is too warm unless a Texas norther is coming through.

Pleasant and helpful salesperson Kathleen Brooker helped me gather some things, which she folded and placed on the counter in one of the cash register islands.

First, we had to call the assistant manager of the section because I had selected a sweater that seemed to be an orphan and had a code that made the computer cross. The assistant manager punched in some numbers that placated the machine and we pushed forward.

When it was all punched in, Kathleen looked at me, sadly.

“What’s the matter?” I quavered.

“It says, ‘Customer to credit.’ You have to go upstairs,” she told me.

I did and stood in line where a number of women were trying to have their bills explained.

When it was my turn, the young woman in charge of the cash counter brought my name up from the same computer somewhere and said to me pleasantly, “You haven’t paid your Christmas bill.”

I was wrathfully righteous and the woman in charge of the credit desk said I could speak to someone in the credit office at the downtown store. His name was Don, and when I told him I lived in La Quinta he told me about his wife’s parents’ place next door in Indian Wells.

Don read me the charges on my account from last December. I had bought every item. The gifts of December sound dreary in the heat of July. But I did remember each thing and to whom it went.

I explained that I had never been billed for any of these things, and although I am the soul of rectitude, I am unlikely to send a department store a check in an undetermined amount at any time, and especially if I have never been asked.

The money desk woman said that my bills had been sent to a man named Thompson in a city in Arizona where I have never set foot. I told Phyllis Chaucoin at the money desk that my name was Mrs. Douglas K. Thompson and the account had been active for some years. The computer had been billing the man in Arizona, whose name differed somewhat, for seven months.

Don in downtown credit said he would fix everything in the computer and all would be well after I wrote a check in the amount I owed. I did, and gave the check to Phyllis and went back to find Kathleen after one hour and 10 minutes.

Several people worked on ringing up my purchases for the second time and you know what happened. The thing said, “Customer to credit.”

I went back upstairs and saw Phyllis, who was sympathetic. By that time, I had a dull disinterest in everything I had bought.

I went back to Kathleen who was pleasant and apologetic. Later, I tried to tell the head of personnel how nice Kathleen had been but that department answers, “Human Resources.” I was so demoralized I hung up before I could commend Kathleen, Phyllis and Don. I thought that by some electronic mishap, I had reached Washington and the Department of Human Resources.

Yes, I wrote a change of address notice to all of my charge accounts when I moved and that was the first time I had tried to use that account since I bought the Christmas stuff.

I phoned and tried once more to tell someone, anyone, that some nice people had tried to help me but when I asked for Petites, they gave me Better Dresses and turned on the aural molasses, causing me to hang up, a demoralized broken blossom.

I think it would have been in the spirit of the season for the fellow in Arizona to pay that little old bill.