Two Wives, Two Buttons

In a earlier time (the 60’s), in a gentler place (Baltimore), I was married. My wife needed a new coat and we went off to the department store to shop for a coat in “Better Coats”. Women’s Departments always have stuff like that and I never understood. I just figured there was the Ladies Department and there was, in those days, the Basement. But needless to say, I wander through life still generally surprised by things most people take for granted.

My wife found the coat she wanted and it was expensive, but we figured you only bought a good coat every couple of years (that was a long time ago!) so we’d go through with it.

She looked down and saw there was a button missing. Sadly, we knew not what to do except exchange all the buttons when we got home. When she put her hand in the pocket, there was the button!

My Mr. Scammer light turned on and I had her hand me the button to put in my pocket, and she went to the salesperson and asked if we could get a discount because of the damaged goods. She called the manager who checked out the coat and explained that while she could not give us a discount, she could call the manufacturer and get another button. We called her bluff and she took the number of the coat and she did get the button and we, of course, had to buy the coat.

I learned a lesson at that point, if you like something, remove a button and taker it home (hardly seen as a crime) and hold on, the item will be on the clearance rack eventually and you’ll have the button! Not the lesson you expected, right?

Now I never did do such a deed although I have recommended it many times to people. I did, however, in the same vein, take a pair of shoelaces from a clearance pair of shoes and purchased another clearance pair that had no shoelaces but were half the price of the laced pair. Now that was bottom scamming!

Last week, my current wife went to Old Navy to buy a featured sweater coat, for $30, down from $45. The one she wanted had a missing button! She called over a sales associate and asked he if there was a discount because the button was missing. She checked with her manager and he gave my wife a 50% discount, so it sold for $15.

When she out it in the cart, my wife realized that the missing button was in the pocket! There was also an additional button sewed into the sweater anyway, which the manager could see. Unlike me, who would have taken the button and put it in my pocket, she left it there and when she checked out, the button fell from the pocket! She told the cashier she knew it was there, but it wasn’t sewn on. They cashier said that she still gets her 50%!

I don’t think I learned anything at this point except that the missing button thing seems to happen in women’s clothing more often than men’s, and two similar experiences shared by two different women in two different places, married to the same man, 42 years apart, doesn’t mean much!