Not for Sale

If you come across a dark blue tee-shirt with a golden rubbery (kind of impractically rubbery) graphic of an elephant--like it's just a golden rectangle with two strategic notches and a hole cut out--let me know.  It's not just any old tee shirt.  It has the softest most buttery texture imaginable.  Almost as thick as a sweatshirt but not like a sweatshirt. 

I found this shirt in my son's size at the Filene's basement on Union Square Wednesday evening. I was in the children's department (about the size of my suburban friend's walk-in-closet which is to say it's about the size of my Brooklyn living room) looking for a dark colored turtle neck for my son to wear in his school musical the next night.  I shouldn't have put the search off as long as I did, but I didn't think it'd be hard to find one in February.  Silly me.  I was trudging through knee-deep slush and snow, holding the fuzzy collar of my coat up over my cheeks to protect them from the biting sleet and furious winds, and I tromped into The Children's Place.  Racks and racks of spring flowers and Easter outfits greeted me.  I get it, I get it.  I should have done all my winter shopping back in, umm, August right?  February in New York is clearly sun-dress season.  Whatever.

Surely the folks at Filene's Basement wouldn't be so organized as to just disappear all their wintry stuff. 
I was mostly wrong.  The children's section was in full spring-bloom.  There was a clearance rack with odds and ends but nothing so odd or endy as a plain dark turtleneck.  As I turned to leave I came face to face with afore-mentioned tee-shirt.  Of course it wouldn't do for the musical and there was a chance my too-cool-for-cool-shirt son wouldn't be into the elephant graphic BUT maybe the shirt was on sale.  Free-standing signs advertising their dollar sale made me wonder if the shirt was going to cost next to nothing.

Of course it had no tags of its own.  I fingered the fabric for awhile then decided to take it to the lady at the register.  I set some ridiculous limit in my head that was only going to cause me confusion which is typical for me.  If the shirt was more than $15 I wasn't interested (he might not like it after all).  If the shirt was less than $12 I might be into it (there are some younger sisters coming up the pike and I could just save it for them).  Don't ask.  It's just that if I give myself one amount to be above or below, like, say, if I decide not to spend more than $15, and it turns out to be $16 I usually end up thinking I probably walk by a dollar's worth of change every few days, why not spend one extra dollar to get this great thing?  So my internal-limits are full of gaps and are pretty fuzzy and I often just decide to buy the thing anyway--like, if it ends up being $30 then it's all of a sudden some really unique fancy shirt and I want it even more. 

The lady peeked in the neck hole, turned it over a few times and shrugged.  I'll have to call the lady from the children's department. 

The lady from the department showed up pretty quickly.  She picked it up, flopped it over and then back again and announced 'this isn't our merchandise.  I can't sell it to you.'  She handed the now-perfect shirt over to the apathetic register girl and instructed her to put it behind her, out of my reach.  Now I was desperate for the shirt.  It swung a bit on its hanger.  I missed it.

'You mean I can't buy that shirt?'  I asked.  Stating the obvious, but needing to understand this turn of events.  Also, it was fun to say it out loud, while giving a dramatic confused look to the people milling about near the register. 

'No, it's not my merchandise.  I can't sell it to you.'  She said.  Speaking slowly.  She was clearly thinking what an idiot.

'So your store paid nothing for it, and I want to give you money for it, and you're not going to let me buy it?'  I repeated.

'Nope' she said and gave the register gal a palms up like why doesn't this lady get it?

'Well...'  I started, 'it's brand new, and it's in your store. How do you think it got there?'

'Obviously someone stole something from us and left this in its place,' was her answer.  She punctuated this remark with a sort of gasp/sigh.  I was clearly being a real jerk.

I've watched detective shows all my life.  Cut my teeth on Petrocelli, swooned over Quincy, yelled 'good death!' with my father when a bad guy's car would burst into flames after bouncing down a canyon in Rockford Files.  I always wished I had a criminal mind. 

Clearly I don't.  Even as I type I can't figure out why someone would walk into Filene's Basement with the best most buttery tee-shirt in the world and leave it behind, on a coat hanger, while walking out with--what?--some marked down starchy kids' shirt? 

I looked at my shirt one more time and then turned around and left.

As I went down the escalator my heart-rate went up.  I couldn't believe I was leaving.  I have extensive retail experience.  I could have called a manager.  I could have called the manager's manager.  I could have talked about dummy skus and the nonsense of displaying an item and then refusing to sell it.  I'm a customer who's pretty good at always being right.

I looped around to the next down-escalator.  Each descent bringing me further and further away from the best shirt in the world.  The one my son might not have even liked.  I remembered that when I thought it was for sale it wasn't worth more than $15 to me.  Hard to imagine that now that I've been denied.  Technically though it would be ridiculous to fight the good fight and end up having them name some crazy-high price.  Right?

Back when I was allowed to hold it and touch it and consider buying it, I'd studied the words on the tag.  Ships Mammoth?  Something like that.  The next day at work I googled every possible version of those words and came up with nothing.

Now I want it more than ever.  I'll probably think about it for the rest of my life.