serendipity

Revenge of the Feather Girl

I tell you, it's tough to be in retail these days. Everyone expects a discount, no one wants to pay sales tax and if you so much as blink at someone the wrong way, you risk a public evisceration on Yelp. Which is what happened to us this week. 

"Feather Girl" came into the shop to buy chicken feathers. What, you may ask, is a feather girl? Well, they are the women who scour fly shops across the nation for special chicken feathers that are being woven into hair (thank you, Steven Tyler).  It's fashion.

So our shop has a bunch of guys in it and I have short hair. None of us gets the allure of weaving chicken feathers into our hair but we're certainly not going to try to stop anyone else from doing it. This fashion trend has given us quite a boon in feather sales and we can barely keep the stuff in stock. This is good.

You can always tell a feather girl in a fly shop. She's younger with long hair. She doesn't look at rods or reels and she doesn't even register that we have clothing. She is on a mission. She is very often very pretty. This is nice for the fly shop staff, who are usually gazing on and talking to gray haired men. A pretty face is welcome in this crowd.

And their money is always appreciated.

Especially in this economy.

So Feather Girl comes in during an event and quietly works her way through the crowd to the back where we keep the tying supplies. She's picked up by one of the staff who already knows what she wants, but he lets her tell him anyway (she says, in effect "I am a feather girl.") He takes her to the rack that has the chicken feathers, but which is rather sparsely populated. She is disappointed not to find what she wants but she sticks around and gets into a nice chat with our staffer. "I've read that fly shops hate the feather girls, I was a little afraid to come in" she says. Our staffer assures her that while our fly tying clients are not big fans of the hair trend, we couldn't be happier to sell the feathers. We are, after all, a store. She asks him more questions about us, how many women customers we have and how old they are, stuff that seems a little weird, but not too much on a busy day. People can be so nosy. He answers her questions and she leaves the store without buying anything. She is not mad.

Or so we thought.

Little Miss Nosypants goes home and logs into Yelp. She hates us. We're "rude, arrogant and sexist." We "lectured" her on the evils of feather fashion. We hate that the feather girls are buying up our precious stock and wish we could save it for our precious clients. On Yelp she lied (I know, what a shocker) and said that she wasn't a feather girl, but that she was there to buy feathers for her dad who is a fly fisherman.

Hold on Willis. Let's stop right there. No one, and I mean no one, but especially not anyone like a daughter goes into a fly shop to buy feathers for their dad. Why? Because there are literally dozens of feather varieties and each one makes different flies.  It's like bringing a bag of flour to a party when what everyone really wants is cake. It's awkward. Which is why, when people buy fly tyers gifts, they usually buy gift certificates. 

The question for us is, what happened to Feather Girl? She left the store perfectly happy (we thought), although without having bought anything. She never said anything negative to anyone, never asked for the manager, never asked for the owner (we were both there that day). She never gave any inkling of having been the least little bit upset. And yet she was so upset that she had to give my shop a one-star review, stating that I should actually get "negative stars," and changing my 5-star rating to 4.5 stars in what appears to be a random act of violence.

Is she simply a wingnut?

I know the rule books say that I'm not supposed to reply to stuff like this, but in times of trouble I sometimes put myself in the shoes of the guy who has dealt with more negative feedback than anyone I know, Mr. Dash. And so I asked myself, if Anil had a store, would he just leave this up on Yelp for everyone to see? Would he simply leave a little "thanks for your feedback we'll try to do better" note? No. At least I don't think so. And so I didn't either. (Don't worry Anil, if this backfires I won't blame you. After all this was an entirely imaginary conversation I had with you in my head. It won't hold up in a courtroom.) 

I composed a (3,348 character) reply that was professional and polite but not capitulating. I may have used the words "elastic bands" and "undergarments," but I used them with love. Or at least with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek with humor she will certainly never understand (but my other customers will get it). I also said I was sorry, because if she's not a wingnut, if she's just an incredibly sensitive person who we somehow managed to offend, I am truly sorry. 

But I think she might just be a wingnut. And if she's a wingnut with friends I may have just kicked an African beehive.  

But I am a woman who owns a fly shop, damn it. I cannot accept charges of sexism. Call me, call us, whatever you want: obsessed with fishing, insensitive to chicken feather fashion, or simply uncool and out of date. But I won't accept charges of sexism lying down.

Not even if they come with cake.

 

Update:

Feather Girl replied to the public reply, shooting from the hip and making matters worse. I replied privately and, miraculously, she agreed to remove the post. She still hates us, but she doesn't actually want us dead.

A Three-Hour Tour

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I got the bossiest horse. Xav’s horse was the most stubborn, Juliette’s had to be tied up by a rope behind the gaucho (and periodically lost her temper) and Cassandre’s horse had two speeds: too fast and too slow.

You couldn’t have matched us better if you'd used eHarmony.

The gaucho was so authentic as to be in costume. Worn leather jacket, scarf wrapped around his upper torso in a way that only a real Chilean cowboy can get away with. A serious face that almost never cracked a smile. Black hair topped with a beret. Well-worn green jeans and black rubber boots (there’s a lot of manure out there in the fields).

We showed up and the horses were ready to go. They helped each of us to mount, adjusted the stirrups and gave us a quick lesson in horse driving. First, this is Chilean horse-riding Not English style. Insert contemptuous guffaw here. This means you hold the reigns with one hand only. Pull left to go left. Pull right to go right. Pull up and toward you to stop. It helps to say “Ho!” Give the horse a kick and click your cheeks to move forward. Got that? Okay. GO!

We walked in formation: the gaucho leading Juliette’s horse, me with my trouble-maker next, then Cassandre, Xav and our (very cute) guide Fernando. We soon broke into two groups: those who were going up the mountain, and those who were not listening to instructions. I’m not talking about the people.

The gaucho’s horse did the gaucho’s bidding ‘cause he knows what’s good for him and he’s probably the gaucho’s favorite horse. Juliette’s horse was being led and didn’t have any choice about which group to join. My horse started testing right away. What happens if I don’t follow the group? What happens if I kind of stay with the group but pick a slightly different but more or less parallel path? What happens if I actually go first? Yes! Let’s go first! Now! Now! Now!

It took me a few minutes to realize that I was in charge of this creature. This was no merry-go-round and it was no pony ride. In fact, if I didn’t pay attention soon, this guy was going to take me on the Chilean version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. I had to figure him out and quickly. I could see he had issues, he wanted to be first and really hated being third in line. For him, it was first or nothing. Nothing meaning: I’m going to do everything I can to annoy you so much you’ll be happy to let me go first. Every time he pulled a NASCAR move to pass the gaucho, I pulled him back in line. Back in line, he would stick his nose up the tail of the horse in front of me, Juju’s horse. This would piss Juju’s horse off a lot. I would pull back on his reigns and make him slow down, which pissed him off. A lot. It’s fair to say we were a little short on happy feelings at the beginning of the trip.

Behind me, Cassandre’s horse was not moving very fast at all. They had to teach Cassandre the call “Helay Helay Helay” to make him go faster (while kicking him, of course) and she liked this because she felt like she was cursing in Italian. However, it only kind of worked.

Xav’s horse was hungry and determined to do what it wanted to do when it wanted to do it. At any given opportunity he would push his head down to eat. At one point he actually tried to buck Xavier off his back. He didn't succeed, but he did drive Xavier to prove who was boss. I’m pretty sure this involved the words “I’ve eaten a lot of your cousins.”

I was only mildly aware of any of this, though, because they were far behind me in the “you’re not the boss of me” group.

We went straight up the mountain. There were times when the view was so gorgeous I would try to take pictures, but my horse, sensing my distraction, would choose that minute to make a NASCAR pass. Stealthily at first, then with a burst of speed, he would pull to the left of the gaucho, who was always looking to the right. It never worked. Even if he wasn’t afraid of the gaucho, I was. I pulled us both back into line. After a bit of practice I got pretty good at my photo Paparazzi moves – I’d whip out the camera, steal a  shot and put my hand back on the saddle before my horse was wise to my actions.

None of us had ever ridden our own horses before. Juliette had ridden ponies at the fair and Cassandre had ridden a mule in France. After several choruses of “you’ve never been on your own horse before?” Xav admitted he hadn’t actually ridden either. I'd had two bad experiences on horseback as a teen and had sworn of horses forever. But here we were, the whole family, going up Breakneck Mountain.

At the top of the hill the ground flattened out and it became clear where we were going. I told my horse pull ahead of the group, knowing that to be first, finally, would make his whole day. Ahead of us was a beautiful corral of trees under which a tiny fire burned. Two other gauchos rode away, having prepared our snack for us. Our gaucho started boiling water in an ancient tea pot, for Maté. On a red checkered tablecloth a delicious snack was spread: chocolate, nuts and cookies. For the kids there was hot chicken soup, for the grown ups, red wine and maté. I know, I know, I probably shouldn’t be swapping maté germs with a strange cowboy, and I almost certainly shouldn’t be drinking the water around here, but maté is maté. This is ritual.

The trees around us were old and withered, permanently bent from hundreds of years of wind. The landscape was like nothing I had ever seen before. But it was cold and it was time to go back. We remounted our horses and started down the hill, toward Argentina.

By now my horse and I had come to a kind of non-verbal agreement. I would let him find his own footing if he would more or less stay in line. This was especially important because Juliette had decided to ride “sola,” on her own, with no gaucho and no rope. After a small rebellious episode where her horse marched directly to a deep puddle to drink for a few minutes, with Juliette yelling at her the whole time, their sola ride was uneventful. I found out later that Juju was the youngest tourist to ever ride alone like this. I’m glad I found this out later. It’s funny, when you’re on an excursion everyone always acts so calm, so ordinary, even while doing dangerous things. It’s important, I find, to remember that just because it’s normal to them, it’s not normal to you. It’s fine to be calm, but it’s a mistake to be cavalier. We were inexperienced riders going down a somewhat muddy hill. This was no time to experiment with trotting.

On the final leg back to the ranch, I saw a horse on the horizon. He was whinnying and jumping and, don’t ask me how, somehow he miraculously passed through the barbed wire fence without jumping and without cutting himself to shreds. He ran straight to the gaucho who, without hesitation, pulled out a lasso and roped the horse from 10 feet away. It all happened so quickly I wondered if it had happened at all. But there he was, a new, rather satisfied-looking horse, being led behind the gaucho.

I parked my horse at the fence and dismounted by myself. The Russian judge gave me 7.2 for getting my left foot caught in the stirrup, but the Chilean judge was more understanding. He gave me a 8.6 for effort, knowing that just being on the horse - by myself - was worthy of a decent mark.

I gave my horse a nice pat on the shoulder and thanked him for not throwing me – and my family - off the top of the mountain.

 

Seeing Clearly

Even though technically I have an astigmatism in one eye, I never needed glasses when I was younger. Oh, when I look back I think, hmmm, glasses might have been useful in college. But then again as an art major, maybe not so much.

In any case I didn't get glasses until my late 20s, when I was using computers a lot (Mac 512K, thank you very much) and suffering from eye fatigue. Still, if you asked me about them I would say, oh no, I don't need glasses, they just help me to do my work better.

Yeah, in the way that clear vision will often help a person.

Over the summer Juliette asked me to take her to the eye doctor. I told her I would, but in reality I didn't take her request too seriously. I figured she had seen someone with glasses and wanted them for fashion reasons. Every few weeks or so she would ask again for an appointment. I quizzed her, are you having trouble seeing your homework? "No." Are you having trouble seeing the smartboard? "Um, I don't think so."

"Okay, then you probably don't need glasses."

"I do need them" she said, often enough that I made a mental note to check into this more closely -  eventually. Fast forward a few more weeks and she's back at school.  We go to the pediatrician for her annual checkup which includes hearing and vision tests. She is healthy, growing beautifully. Great hearing, great kid.

"Great! How's her eye test?"

"Oh! Let me check those results." Cue one very surprised doctor and one very not surprised Juliette.

A visit to the local eye doctor confirmed it: astigmatisms in not one, but both eyes. Far sighted.

She didn't need any help at all to pick out her glasses. She tried on eight pairs and told us exactly which one looked best - a gorgeous pair of  electric blue glasses. On the street she gave a running commentary of everything she could "see clearly now." Trees. Cars. Patterns. Us. The world was literally a different place for her.

Juliette loves to come up to me and put her face an inch away from mine. It should be intense eye contact, I know that's what she's looking for, but the truth is that I can't really see her at this distance. In an interesting twist, now that she is able to see clearly, I am losing my vision. Close up like this she's just a happy blur, breathing into my face. Probably smiling but I can't say for sure.

The consequence of losing my detailed vision is that I'm becoming obsessive about details. Normally if I don't tweeze my eyebrows they grow straight across my forehead into a uni-brow. Now that I can't police them, my eyebrows are jumping the border headed for unification. Like weeds taking over the garden, they spread a little more every day. 

The only way to see my eyebrows up close is to wear my glasses, but when I wear my glasses I can't get the tweezers close enough to my eyebrows.

Enter the 15x magnifying mirror. Both enemy and friend, I can tweeze my eyebrows with ease, while it reveals new features before which I was blissfully unaware. For example, did you notice I have pores the size of moon craters? That the Rosacea I thought was gone is in reality breaking tiny blood vessels all across my cheeks? I knew about the three hairs that grow out of my beauty mark but I was not at all aware of my moustache. At this terrible distance the bags under my eyes are positively vampiric.

How could you not tell me? Oh! You mean you can't see these things WITHOUT 15x magnification?

Perfect, because I've decided I'm too old and too vain to see myself at this magnification and that failing vision is actually a blessing. Like Diane Sawyer I don't want to go on camera without the special blurry lens. I'm not ready for my close up.

Juliette, on the other hand, is more ready than ever. Oblivious to her good looks, she only cares about what her glasses do for her.  She can see. Clearly. For the first time in her life.