Invisible Shopper

Do you ever feel invisible?  Like, you don’t measure up to some elusive standard of a well heeled shopper.  Well it happens to me all the time.  What is it?  Try as I might I can’t figure it out.  Here’s the scene.

 I’m thinking I’m pretty savvy.  I know where I’m headed (after all, I am a local now) and I know the designer’s name (I have an invitation) albeit a postcard advertisement.  I bike down to a trendy shop on King Street and enter the store with demure graciousness.  It’s a tiny space and not crowded…there’s only one customer looking at the jewelry.  I begin to look as well, touching a few things, making a few ooos and ahhs, and I admit I did look at the price tags.  Perhaps that’s a signal to becoming invisible…strike one.

 I then introduced myself to the older lady (not quite my age) and suggesed she’s the clever designer.  Wrong.  Her daughter is the “oh-so-classy” young thing in crisp whites sporting the elegant necklaces.  That could have been strike two.  I do manage to redeem myself a bit by inquiring about commissioned pieces, and the “mother” measured my neck for size.  It was all rather quick-like.  The interest and entire focus was clearly on the other customer.

I have to say they were nice in a tight lipped kind of way.  I stood around a bit longer.  Wandered around the 300 sq. feet of store space (that didn’t take long) and slipped quietly, un-noticed out the door.

It was later when I was pondering and reflecting about the not-so-successful encounter that I took stock of myself.  I surely am not invisible.  I have my black exercise tights on coupled with a College of Charleston  sweatshirt, a CVS plastic bag, and a piece of dog-poo clinging to my pant leg.  How on earth was I invisible! 

Strike three.