Minority Shopping

Although I don’t possess the requisite set of testicles or talent for stand up comedy, I’ve always told myself that if I were a stand up, I wouldn’t resort to the type of comedy typified by race.  To me, racial humor is far too easy to do and is too easy to do incorrectly.  Some comedians (Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K. to name a few) are good enough to imbue their comedy with racial overtones without it seeming that the only thing they are talking about.  There are times however when the experience of being a minority in a relatively majority world (in my case being Hispanic in Finance when 98% of the workforce is Caucasian) is something that deserves highlighting.

I have a Russian coworker who is adverse to buying things on her own.  I’m not sure if it’s embarrassment because of the language barrier, her accent, or outright laziness but she always delegated her purchases.  Recently, she accosted me to buy a tie for her as a present for someone.  She specifically asked me to please buy a tie for her using her credit card with the instructions that the tie must’n be less then $150 or more then $350.  Who spends that much money on a tie?  Now I don’t need to repeat my feelings on this useless accessory, suffice to say that I went about my mission with equal parts confusion and trepidation.  I knew what awaited.

See as a minority, anytime I enter an expensive store, I feel sick to my stomach.  The opulence and my own financial short comings form a lethal combination on par with a night of heavy drinking followed by spicy Thai food.  In addition, most expensive stores are usually only frequented by Caucasians that feel it’s totally fine to spend $90 on socks or $200 on a tie for example.  Myself? If someone gave me a $200 tie as a gift, I would immediately try to sell it or return it somehow for straight up cash.  I’m not sure that has anything to do with being a minority or having different skin pigmentation.  I’d like to think that it’s something rooted in me by an immigrant frugality.  I see an expensive item such as a tie, and can’t for the life of me understand why someone would spend so much money on something that looks similar to a less expensive item.

Anyways, I left the office on my way to the nearest high end male clothing store for the designer Ermenegildo Zenga.  As I reached for the door, I couldn’t help but sigh and accept what was about to happen.  I entered the store and everything stopped.  I could read what everyone was thinking by the looks on their faces showing a mixture of confusion (shouldn’t he be in the back unpacking something?), embarrassment (I thought the cleaning crew wasn’t arriving till nighttime!), and fear (oh god we have to follow him around so he doesn’t steal anything).  Immediately a sales man confronted me and let me know that their sale section was in the back.  For real dude? It was so blatantly racist but also helpful that I couldn’t help but thank the guy while giving him a soft stink eye.  I made a bee line for the tie rack with mister sales man/fashion school drop out trailing my ass like a dog in heat.  Have you ever tried shopping with someone so close to you that you’d wish they’d wear a condom?  As it was, I started sweating from either the pressure or the body heat emanating from the sales man.  I picked out the tie, paid for it (not before I handed the cashier my coworker’s credit card at which point the cashier asked me if the card was mine and I stumbled as though I were some drug mule, apologized profusely and handed over my actual credit card to pay for the item) and ran out of there post haste.

             So really what’s the deal?  I was wearing my work clothing (tie, dress shirt, pants) and I don’t exactly screaming “threatening.”  And I mean I wouldn’t steal anything (primarily because there were so many people around and I wouldn’t have time to take off the security devices, but still).  Am I just being paranoid about the situation?  Maybe the sales man had recently been spoken to by his boss about his poor sales figures.  Maybe I caught the sales man at a time of reckoning when he told himself he was going to pounce on every customer and make them supremely uncomfortable until they bought something.  Maybe I’m just over evaluating the situation and am hyper sensitive.