Summer cleaning

So I've decided to abandon the style, if you can call it that, of my past blog entries. I've never been good at committing to writing down everything as it happens, so I tried the "stream of conciousness" style for a bit. It didn't work out too well. So instead, I will try to document the striking things that happen to me, and perfect those entries. I've changed some other things, namely the title of the blog, to be more appropriate for what I will be writing about--going to school at Mizzou, getting an MA in creative writing, my wedding planning and marriage to T, my dogs, and the things I find unbelievably interesting. Stay tuned.


I recently found a summer job, after many weeks of searching. I was employed at Chipotle for about a week until I heard back from Kohl's offering me an associate position. I'm not normally the type of person to bail so easily on jobs, but I had been there done that with Chipotle. I rolled burritos for about a year in high school, enduring crappy pay and brute supervisors. I still have scars from the tortilla press. So naturally when a job came about that did not require any sweat or potential for burns--from a tortilla press or the sun--I jumped on it. My week-long boss was not happy, but I have to look out for me, right? Kohl's is ridiculously close to my home, and let's face it, I'll save all I can in gas. So I left Chipotle, and forged my way into retail.

I've never worked retail before and so I find the mundane things about my new job incredibly interesting. I'll try to explain the best I can in later segments, but for now, I would like to focus on the customer, who Kohl's always refers to as "she" or "her."

As I sat through training with other new hires, I found myself struck by the videos that continually referred to the Kohl's customer as female. As a feminist and one to gets up in arms fairly easily (ask T), I tried to find a way in which this was sexist. Are the women supposed to be the ones shopping for their fat, lazy husbands because of forced gender roles? Why can't men buy their own socks? Blah blah blah. But then I realized that yes, women do the majority of the shopping, at least at Kohl's, evidenced by the large section of women's clothing. This was all very apparent to me when I found myself working in the MJM: misses', junior's, and men's departments.

Women intimidate me. Especially the ones that will drop $200 in clothing, accessories and housewares like it's nothing. Perhaps it's because I have no money, at least until the school loans come in, and that fact that women like that exist makes me a bit sad. I hope to have that amount of money some day, where I can buy a $400 vacuum, but until then, I pine. Women are also pushy. They want to know why the Nike socks are more expensive than the Croft and Barrow. They want their size in the fitting room and they want it NOW. The behavior of these women is cutthroat; I imagine these are the same women who clad themselves in armor with their daughters so they can fight crowds on Black Friday, or those days when the fancy bridal salons have $99 sales. I just don't get it.

So the customers are intimidating. Thankfully I have been working in men's lately, but more on that later.

Off to nurse my retail bruises,

S