So . . . I Guess This Is Good Buy

I must have been the last person in Los Angeles to hear about the Broadway’s Final Inventory Clearance Sale.

Shopping is not my metier.

The historic transformation going on right now as the venerable Broadway chain gives way to Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s might have slipped my notice entirely had not a helpful colleague suggested that the frenzied bargain hunting would be worth a look.

The prices just dropped from 25% off to 40%, he said, raising the human comedy to its most exquisite pitch.

The very thought of bargain hunting at the Broadway brought forth a flood of memories. I was but a grade-schooler at my mother’s elbow when I first descended into the bargain basement of the old downtown store at 4th and Broadway and saw grown women lurching and elbowing for items of apparel the way we boys fought over a football during recess.

Such childhood trauma can have important formative effects. In my case, one was lifetime avoidance of public spaces where merchandise is being sold for less than its everyday price.

When outfitting myself, I’m glad to pay a few extra dollars for a suitably subdued male environment and a skilled hand with the tailor’s chalk.

When I was younger, I had my own haberdasher at Silverwoods in the Broadway Plaza downtown. Jack Schaffer was a suave, older man with a continental lilt to his voice. He had a wonderful feel for fabric, and he knew my shape and taste. He’d call a couple of times a year when he had a suit that was right for me.

Those were my best-dressed years.

Silverwoods is gone now.

When I lost touch with Jack, I developed a system that has served me well. Once every year or two, I take my checkbook to a department store and stay there until I have a new suit, two blazers and three or four pairs of worsted or gabardine trousers. That’s all a man needs.

Wool slacks and blazer are the reporter’s uniform, just like a blue cotton shirt is the mechanic’s. Once he has a combination for each day of the week, he can wear them until the elbows wear through. I can go two years before restocking.

Other than these infrequent sorties, my only other experience with department stores has been the annual Christmas obligation. This I squeeze into a single day. It’s so intense that I black out the memory of the actual transactions. Years ago my wife stopped asking how much my purchases cost. She’s better off not knowing.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate value. I once bought a Skil 9.6-volt cordless drill for under $70. That was a deal!

But I wouldn’t know how to evaluate 40% off the regular price of a lady’s blouse, a bottle of Opium or even something as unisex as Mikasa crystal stemware.

I didn’t even know what questions to ask Thursday as I walked into the Broadway at Sherman Oaks Fashion Square.

So I was not disappointed to see that the melee I expected was not happening. A few shoppers milled about the perfume stands. Their motions were deliberate, if not contemplative. They weren’t grabbing just anything.

Much of the carnage was obviously already over. Parts of the second floor were empty except for long rows of racks interwoven like shopping carts after being stripped of their vestments.

A gaggle of unclothed mannequins huddled in one corner, circled by a ribbon of yellow police tape, which gave the impression that they were being restrained from escape. I hadn’t remembered mannequins being so sexually explicit.

In housewares, another sight made no connection to any from my past. A male couple were on their hands and knees picking out designer bar glasses from a wall display.

At the cash register, they blushed with pride in recounting their successful strategy of waiting for the 40% reduction. True, another price slash might be coming up, one conceded, but 40% was better than anything they had seen before, and they were watching carefully.

“If you wait too long, there won’t be any left,” he said, not offering his name for publication.

Next I headed for the Tea Room, hoping to revive a pleasant, old memory. I had been there once at least 20 years before, escorted by Donna Scheibe, society writer for The Times’ then-twice-weekly San Fernando Valley section.

This was before the Warner Center Marriott or the Universal Hilton gave the Valley the uptown sassiness that is so apparent today. Scheibe had an eye for the potential, though. The Tea Room was her spot, representing the cool sophistication that was the Valley’s gift to well-bred, middle-class women. With growing anticipation, I made a complete survey of bedding and home furnishings before facing up to the fact that the Tea Room was not there.

Stunned, I pieced the explanation together from threads of ancient memory. It was in Bullock’s across the way.

And while confessing to memory lapse, I should add that it’s since dawned on me that it was the May Co. bargain basement, not the Broadway, where I cringed as a child.

How all the great halls of merchandise fuse in the mind like the endless streams of faces that fill their aisles.

Down the escalator I went to women’s fashions on the second floor. I was drawn to a man about my age who stood gauntly beside a line of women who were waiting to pay for their purchases.

“Find any good bargains?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said uneasily.

“You’re waiting for your wife?”

He nodded. I eased away. The poor man was in too much pain already to be confronted with notoriety.

On the ground floor I made one more try. I approached a 60ish blond in a fur coat who was pecking at a handbag table.

“Finding any bargains?” I asked.

Either hard of hearing or too streetwise to fall for that line, she walked away brusquely.

“Oh, yes!” said a bright British voice from the other side of the table.

I looked into the young smile of Londoner Sophie Zoghbi, who told me of her unexpected good fortune in arriving for a week in Los Angeles during the Broadway sale.

She and her friend, Kirsten Wiltshire, had just been dropped off by their American hosts and would call to be picked up when they were done, probably in about five hours.

They had already done full days at the Beverly Center, Topanga Plaza, the Galleria and Northridge Fashion Center, not even blinking at the fact that the latter’s merchandise is not on sale.

Everything is so much cheaper than back home that it didn’t matter.

Their shopping spree left no time for Disneyland or Universal Studios, which they had seen on a previous visit.

“We decided to give them a miss this time,” Sophie said.

Having taken down all the information that my work required, I departed, feeling fortunate that I had not given the Broadway a miss that day.

Sometimes it takes a foreign perspective to see what we’ve been missing.