I was finally shamed into replacing the aged, threadbare towels in the Blue and Only Bathroom when the GG and I were on an expotition to Bed Bath & Beyond before xmas and he started looking at the towels. We didn’t buy any towels then but I quietly resolved to get off my you-know-what and obtain some new bath towels. Soon.

After looking around on the internet, I decided I would get my towels at Hudson’s Macy’s, so today I saddled up the Frog Hopper and trundled over to The Mall in time to be there when it opened. I picked out my towels in pretty short order and went up to the counter to pay for them and that’s when the ordeal started:

Clerk: Are you going to use your Hudson’s Macy’s card to pay for these?

KW: No, I’ll just use my debit card.

Clerk: Do you *have* a Hudson’s Macy’s card?

KW: Oh, somewhere. But I’d rather use my debit card. [I don’t have a Macy’s card and I was thinking, “it’s none of your damn business!”]

Clerk: We can look up whether you have a Hudson’s Macy’s account or not and if you don’t, you can open one and you’ll get 10% off and another 20%. [Or something like that, my eyes were totally glazed over by the time she started talking percentages. I not a math phobe. I just didn’t care.]

KW: No thank you. I don’t like to use more than a couple of credit cards.

Clerk [after I had paid for my towels]: If you had applied for a Hudson’s Macy’s card, you would have saved blah-de-blah.

KW [looking around wildly for the escalator]: That’s okay.

Clerk: And if you have a Hudson’s Macy’s card you get all kinds of loverly specials if you shop here a lot.

KW [deadpan]: I don’t shop *anywhere* a lot. [I lied. I shop at the Plum Market a lot.]

Customer *service* anyone? Can we pick this apart please?

First. This store used to be a Hudson’s store. I used to have a Hudson’s card. I even used it sometimes. The Commander’s first job after college was in the old downtown Daytwa Hudson’s store. When I was a kid, we would travel to Daytwa a couple times a year to see Grandaddy and Bolette and The Commander would take me shopping at the downtown Hudson’s. I would buy a couple outfits on the second floor and fabric on the eighth(?) floor and we’d have lunch on the mezzanine. It was her old stomping grounds and yes, I was excited to be shopping in a huge store in the then-bustling city of Detroit. Revolving doors and escalators and the whole bit. Hudson’s is long gone now and we watched the demolition of the old downtown store on TV. I don’t know why but whenever a Hudson’s Macy’s clerk asks me if I want a credit card or if I have one, my brain goes into a big meltdown and I sorta want to say that I already have a Macy’s card except I don’t. I *used* to have a Hudson’s card. So I sort of sputter around and if I am dealing with an aggressive clerk — like I was today — it ends badly and I leave the store hoping I never have to go there again.

Do I not like to save money, you might be wondering? Of course I like to save money. But not with strings attached. I spent a grand total of $117 today for six decent quality bath towels that I *think* may have already been on sale. So if my savings for opening an account was 20%, I’d have saved about $23 dollars. That’s all fine but even though we are not anywhere near the 1%, $117 is not going to break the bank for me and I do not need any more credit cards. Especially not one that I might use once a year. It’s just more clutter to keep track of.

Oh and then she lectured me about what kind of laundry detergent to use and not to use and how to dry the towels yada-yada-yada. Of course, the kind of laundry detergent that I *use* is the kind that she told me *not* to use and it’s unlikely that I’ll switch because I’m using that kind of detergent because it’s what *works* in my HE washer. Sheesh! I know how to do laundry and these are *towels*. I don’t really care how long they last. You could practically see through the ones I threw out today and I’ll probably keep these about that long too, because that’s how I roll. When they do get to the point where I can see through them, I’ll buy some new ones.

I wonder if the GG has noticed the new towels yet.

P.S. I greatly appreciate all of the wonderful book suggestions yesterday. Definitely sounds like stuff that’s up her alley and I may well download some of them for *me* too. I would like to buy a kindle for The Comm. It would certainly be the easiest way for her to get new reading material but I’m not sure how well it would work out. We’ll see…

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