Why?
Monday, January 12th, 2009Believe it or not, counting is not the most mentally tasking skill I have learned over the years. As a result, my shifts spent working on inventory at retail job this week have left me a lot of time on the clock to consider the greater mysteries of life.
Yesterday, I tried to decide how developed Martha Stewart’s arms must be since she apparently believes that the only dished worthy of carrying her brand name weigh between 50 and 75 pounds each. From there, I tried to develop (in my head) a combination workout/baking routine where you could burn as many calories cooking the desserts as you would take in by eating an entire batch of chewy chocolate chip cookies.
But today, we were doing inventory in the jewelry department. I got the “bargain” counter. After spending 3 hours untangling crappy $8 necklaces, I started in on boxed items, which led me to muse…
The estimated ratio of insects to humans is 200 million to 1. My estimated ratio of crappy bejeweled pins/brooches in the shape of insects to humans is at least 400 million to 1.
But if there is such demand for ugly, cheap brass and rhinestone bugs, why don’t I ever see anyone wearing them? Who buys them (aside from guys desperately looking for something for Mom but thinking “she already has earrings”)? Where do they go?
I’m left to assume this is one of those great feminine mysteries that men–gay or straight–will never really figure out. Perhaps it has something to do with menstruation and the ability to win every argument. Or maybe the sparkly bugs contain the secret of formal event fashion options (as opposed to “look, it’s another black tux!”).
Perhaps we will never know.
From ‘93-’96, I worked for Lazarus Dept. Stores here in Indy. Macy’s actually bought them out. I remember hating inventory time. We always wondered why they didn’t just hire a company to come in and do it.
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Oh no! Tacky bug jewelry is worse than real bugs (and I just spent LOTS of time with the real ones!)
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The tacky bug jewelry was a fad that the fashion designers tried to start in the early Nineties. The reason Macy’s has a huge box of the stuff is that it was short lived and didn’t catch on as well as everyone thought it would.
Somewhere I have a bee pin that I NEVER wear in a box with all my old stuff from the Eighties.
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Jere Reply:
January 15th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Actually, Macy’s had dozens of boxes of the stuff (Monet and Liz Claiborne lines) that are current active products. If an item doesn’t sell within a certain amount of time, it gets marked down and (eventually) written off as a loss, so these couldn’t be more than 2-3 years old.
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