Free Retail Hell by Freeman Hall Page A

is.”
    “That’s it. We are just going to teach you ourselves,” announced Jules.
    My official handbag training began at that moment. I didn’t really give a shit what a fucking red Dolly was, but it was time to start using handbag lingo. The General had been pressuring me. She kept asking how my Guide studies were going. “Suzy doesn’t like cashiering. You need to improve your sales by selling, not waiting for customers. You NEED to find the TIME to READ the Guide.”
    Sorry, General Judy,What I NEED is to hurry up and write my Million-
Dollar Screenplay and quit The Big Fancy!
    I’d found Judy’s so-called Guide completely useless, reading it was like reading a legal deposition written in Latin. There were no pictures, just a list of companies, their uninteresting histories, and a bunch of bizarre handbag terms that sounded like an inventory sheet for a military weapons arsenal: roll bag, drawstring feedbag, tote, cross-body, demi pouch, barrel, hobo, mini, messenger, carryall, duffle, and convertible bucket.
    Convertible bucket? Are we selling cars? Drawstring feedbag? Does it come
full of apples and oats? Roll bag? Who invented that? Cheech and Chong?
    “Every handbag silhouette has a name,” said Jules, “They may sound strange, but many shapes and designs are actually taken from the names of bags in other industries. Dooney & Bourke once copied an old ammunition bag and made it in three sizes, and it was the hottest style for several years.”
    “Did they call it the Ammo Bag and fill it with bullets?” I asked, teasing.
    Jules laughed and replied, “No, but it was heavy as hell. Dooney called it the Spectator.”
    “Spectator sucks,” I said, “I would have called it the Bullet or maybe the Uzi.”
    Then Marsha jumped in on the trip down Handbag Memory Lane: “What I remember about the Dooney & Bourke Spectator is how much I hated merchandising them. They wouldn’t stay standing up. Fell over constantly like dominos. They were always a mess and I pulled a muscle lugging those bastards out of the stockroom. Sold a lot of them, though.”
    Jules was on the move in the leather jungle. She grabbed a pink medium-size structured bag with a single handle. “This is one of my favorite handbag shape stories,” she said, “They call this shape — with the single rounded handle — the Kelly bag. It was created by the famous French fashion house Hermès. Then in the ’50s Grace Kelly was photographed wearing it because she wanted something stylish to cover her pregnant belly. Next thing you know, everyone goes nuts and women around the world had to have it! Any bag made in this shape is now called the Kelly bag. The Big Fancy makes this one on our private label and they call it Amanda.”
    I was mesmerized by the Grace Kelly story because I love so many of her films, but then I realized Jules had called that Big Fancy brand Kelly bag Amanda. Handbag names 101 was getting complicated.
    “Wait,” I said, “Are you telling me they have silhouette names AND people names?”
    “Afraid so, hon,” said Marsha, “Just like my plants and cats!”
    “And my dog, Ginger,” added Jules, “She’s a Yorkshire Terrier. Absolutely gorgeous.”
    Cammie tossed a slouchy-looking bag over her shoulder, “This motherfucker is named Rodan. How fucking stupid is that?”
    “A satchel named Rodan?”
    “Umm . . . Freeman, that one is a hobo,” said Jules.
    “Hobo? I am
so
fucked. I’ll never remember all this. Maybe I should leave right now.”
    Marsha’s arm went around me. “You’ll do no such thing, hon. We love you! It’s been a breath of fresh air having a guy around here for a change.”
    With the Handbag Guide in tow, the Angels went over every shape, showing me what was what. Turned out a demi pouch was small with a short strap, a roll bag looked like a giant Tootsie Roll with a strap, and a drawstring feedbag was definitely something a horse could eat out of.
    In my mind a hobo was a vagabond, a