A&F gives me scurvy

Cor blimey. So today I had to go to the Verizon Wireless store at the mall to get my Blackberry fixed (turns out if it dies you need to plug it in for at least 30 minutes before it responds. My bad.) These days I try to avoid the mall at all costs. This is because I suffer from a pretty treacherous condition known as post-traumatic Abercrombie and Fitch stress disorder (PTAFSD for short.)Everytime I walk by that store and smell that God-awful cologne (which smells like sixteen year olds giving blow jobs on Daytona Beach, sorry to be crass mom) and hear that heart cockle-shattering complaint house music I get a migraine for the rest of the day. This is not only testament to my being old and uncool. You see, when I was 17 years old I sold my soul and worked at Abercrombie and Fitch for the worst month of my life. The whole debacle started when I skipped school to go shopping one fateful day (cue horror movie B minor chords.) I was minding my own business, stocking up on BRUNETTES ARE HOTTER t-shirts, when the visual manager approached me and started kvelling over my outfit. The visual manager was gay as a window, had Bauhaus aspirations, and couldn't wait to leave his job as a smut peddler and become a true artiste. Obviously love at first sight. He asked me if I'd ever modeled before and if I would like to work at A&F because I had "a look." In retrospect, what a terrible A&F visual manager he was. I'm about as all-American as a pagoda and nearly had a coronary when I heard that black clothing was banned on the premisis. At 17 years of age, however, you'll sell out to the first person who tells you that you're blossoming into something. The chance to be a jailbait sex symbol? Hells yeah. It wouldn't be too long before I was in a boathouse on Lake Minnetonka running down a line of chaps with deltoids bigger than their heads doing fuzzy navel shots off their abdominal muscles. Hah. right.


At orientation I was introduced to Kurt. If anyone fit the bill for being "the worst" Kurt had to be it. He had blonde spiky hair, called everyone bro, and probably drank a lot of Miller Hi-Life in Seaside Heights on the weekends. He vaguely referred to being in med school at one time which means he was probably shtupping a med school student at one time. I like to think of him as the Iceberg Slim to my baby prostitute. He was the store manager and his job was to transform me from outsider child ruffian (like Oliver!!) to tanned half-naked Abercrombie goddess. His claim to fame was that he once refused to sell Lauryn Hill a jacket because it was pinned onto the mannequin. The golden rule at A&F is that you kill yourself before you sell any merchandise that is "property of the visual department." I promised that if Lauryn Hill came in I would sell her ten jackets off the mannequin. Girl killed in Sister Act 2.

My tenure at A&F was spent folding sweaters and opening up dressing room doors. On the job I had to exclusively wear Abercrombie and Fitch clothing, keep myself perma-tan, and pretend that this was a lifestyle that I really dug subscribing to. I also had to withstand the noxious noxious fumes of A&F cologne all day. I would find myself trying not to pass out on piles of torn baseball hats after holding my breath for minutes at a time. The residual smell would burn in my nostrils and keep me up many a night tossing and turning (that is, if I wasn't having a recurring nightmare about Kurt taking me boating on the pretense of getting tan together and then locking me up in his Igloo cooler a la Cherie on Punky Brewster.) I was promoting a lifestyle that was the antithesis to everything that I am. What a phony I was! I don't like boating, I don't like football, I don't like playing soccer, and I don't hang out in wooded areas in Michigan.

Every month or so the employees at the store would send half-naked photos of themselves to A&F headquarters (a cultish sort of place in Ohio presided over the Charles Manson of sexyhipcool Americana -- Mr. Mike Jeffries) hoping to be included in one of the catalogues or ads. This really fucks with the mind of a freshly minted 18 year old puppy. Working at a place that is so insistent on this uber-sexualized ideal of aesthetic perfection is a helluva lot of pressure for a young girl. I didn't like fraternizing with Kurt and his steroidal comrades. I didn't want to stand in my underwear outside of the store. I hated folding sweaters. And worst of all -- the smell of Abercrombie and Fitch cologne was giving me nosebleeds. I bolted and never set foot in that God awful place again.

So now I can't go to any malls because the smell of Abercrombie eu de vomit triggers a panic reaction. To be young and neurotic! -- mar mar