Oh I love clothes! The smell of the dressing room, sheen of the lights and cool comforting air tempts me into that 4 foot square box called a "fitting room".  In that box, sacred things happen.  Magical jeans are found, and flattering T's that can be dressed up and down are discovered!  It is in that box that life happens.  Those who enter go in totally entranced by the retail God's.  In their mind they are convinced the shirt they are paying $12 for that is worth about $3.50 is the bargain of the year! Now, don't get me wrong. I am not excluding myself from the "they"; in fact, I am a "they".  I like telling myself I have plenty of "retail" experience from Aldo, Target and Deseret Book.  Well, between 9:00am and 1:00pm today, the word "retail" was redefined in my mind.

retail   verb giving consumers what is desired with fake smile as the face cringes at the messy fitting room 

retail noun an unforgiving creature that steals money from innocent consumers 

Today was my first day at Gap as an employee. I was really excited for today because I was going to get my discount card! And of course, I was equally excited to work.  ahem. anyway, I walk in and the first thing that needed done before the store opened was to clean the bathrooms and dust, stuff like that. So, we did that.  Then, the doors opened and I was thrown in.  I felt like an ant being thrown into a bouncy castle with a bunch of 5 year olds, and expected to survive, while protecting my wife and our three ant-lings.  Well, I guess it would be husband and three ant-lings.  Awkward.  So, there I was told to do the dressing rooms.  After Chris, one of the managers said "go to the dressing rooms" he quickly scampered off to do something else. I was like, oh ok.  sure, I totally know what you're talking about, I do dressing rooms all the time.  In the little office of the dressing rooms was a sign, that basically explained everything that needed to be done, so I figured that out pretty fast.  People would come, try things on, find nothing and of course dump 10 piles of jeans for me to put away.  It made me almost as happy as Christmas morning!  Other people would (here's where that fake smile comes in) stick their head out and ask for another size in something. I would see in the background all the rejects they didn't like.  I would say in the nicest voice I could "Oh sure, I know where those are, I've got this store memorized! YEAH!  I would love to spend 20 minutes searching for those. I'll be back in a sec, won't take long at all!"  Ok, so I think you get the picture.  No, but all kidding aside, it's really not that bad.  Once I know where things go, and can go faster, it will be fun I'm sure.  There were times I was able to suggest a certain wash or fit of jeans to people simply because I love Gap jeans, and they would try them and but them.  That's why I love retail, when you find someone something flattering they feel good about it's worth it.