Bergdorf

Last night I stared into the face of death—and then she blinked. Turns out it was just another regular at Bergdorf Goodman—seventy-year-old body, thirty-year-old face, and lips so full of collagen that even Goldie Hawn would be jealous. My job, such as it was, required that I stand behind a jewelry counter at Bergdorf Goodman, while the who care’s of Manhattan’s Upper East Side swarmed about for a book signing. There I was, wedged between a $10,000 necklace and a $5,000 nose, trying to understand how anyone was supposed to believe that one came installed with the original package. It’s like playing Mrs. Potato Head with all those interchangeable facial features- one week cheekbones are in, the next they’re out, with just a stroke of the knife.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of walking through Bergdorf Goodman (or been threatened with unemployment), then let me welcome you to the People Who Have Better Things To Do With Their Money club, or as we like to call it back home—Real Life. Let’s face it, if you are actually shopping in that store then you either have a Park Avenue address or are spending all the money you brought on your vacation from rural Nebraska on a single designer silk wrap, in an effort to impress your friends and neighbors, none of whom will have even heard of the designer, and trust me, no one even knows what to do with a wrap, especially not in Omaha. So, yes, Bergdorf Goodman, nine floors of ridiculously priced shopping disguised as your living room. Complete with a café that serves chopped salads the ladies only pretend to eat, and a salon whose services, from what I can tell, consist of layered hair cuts and matching highlights for you and your fur coat.

True clients of Bergdorf Goodman are a society unto themselves. They prance about air-kissing their “friends,” but it’s a mystery how they even recognize each other, as their faces grow increasingly younger with age, rendering them positively frozen in their twenties. Frozen being the operative word; while their eyebrows display a constant state of surprise, no other features budge for fear the staples will come lose and the skin on their chin will return to its rightful place somewhere near the abdomen. Though, like trees, you can determine the age of these unnatural wonders by counting the rings on their neck. You can always tell the new money because they haven’t yet found the best plastic surgeons. One poor girl’s chest looked like two balloons had been stapled to her ribs, leaving a great chasm she insists is cleavage but what is truly a lawsuit, bless her heart. I have never understood why stick people think they need to have D-cups, they look like they’re going to fall over, and honey, nobody—NOBODY—thinks they’re real.

I’ve never found any of these socialites to be particularly friendly, but then if I were carrying around 15 extra pounds on my chest and hadn’t so much as sniffed a piece of cake in the past three years, I might be a bit irritable too, especially if that Muffy bitch had just bought the last Berkin bag right out from under me. Truly, the waiting list for a kidney can be no more agonizing than that of next season’s handbag. My only line of defense last night was the open bar, were I found myself at home among the cocktails. The cater waiters were friendly as well—the peasant class always recognizes its members, especially when attempting unsuccessfully to disguise themselves amidst the upper class.

I’d like to think that someday I’d be able to afford to shop at Bergdorf and spend the GDP of a third world country on a single pants suit. Amazing the outfits you can justify if you refuse to recognize the poverty of many African nations, or the ninety-sixth homeless man that your Manolos stepped over on your way to the spa. Until that time, however, I shall continue to visit only as often as my job requires my presence at Bergdorf Goodman—the definitive department store, the Fifth Avenue Mecca, and the place where silicone goes to die.