How to Shop a Warehouse Sale

Sorry…that should read…how NOT to shop a warehouse sale.

Have you ever been to a warehouse sale? I hadn’t up until a week ago.  My husband got an invite from his American Express card to an “exclusive” pre-opening day. Since they had advertised over 30,000 shoes on sale between 50-80% off I figured it would be worth a peek.

I wore a version of this outfit, but with jeans, booties and a leather jacket.

We went to the shoe sale and I picked up these sandals

And hubby bought these brogues

Then we noticed that right next door there was a Nordstrom warehouse sale. Since we’d made the trip we figured it would be criminal not to stop in and see what they had.

The thing about these warehouse sales is *spoiler alert* they’re in a warehouse.

I know. Obvious right? What isn’t obvious is that you have to change in a room that looks like a barn. One massive area with no walls separating you from anyone else, a few mirrors strewn here and there, horrible lighting, and everyone has to get naked in front of everyone else.

Okay, granted they weren’t unisex change rooms…but I did feel like one amongst a herd of cattle.

I don’t care for changing in front of other people. Even family members.

The prices were too good though and I forced myself to get over my shyness rather quickly.  I was very uncomfortable and trying to be as efficient as possible to expedite the whole distasteful matter. What I won’t do for some cheap clothes. Sad really. Just sad.

I took in 6 items with me but had to leave one item out of the change room. (Isn’t that always the way?) There were no chairs, you just had to throw your stuff and clothes on the floor.

In my haste to get things on and off as quickly as possible I threw everything down into one big pile.

It’s important to note that one of the items I was trying on was this skirt by Michael Kors.

Notice how it has exactly the same print as the blouse I was wearing? I thought they might work together, but the skirt looked dowdy on me and was WAY out of my price range even at 80% off. Reg price was something insane, over $2 200. My blouse is from Target and I believe cost $29.

So I quickly changed out of that, threw it on the ground in the heap with everything else, tried on one of the dresses I’d taken in but decided I needed to go get that last item I’d left outside of the massive “fitting room”.  I grabbed the python print I knew I wasn’t buying and ran back to the door/curtain, handed it to one of the ladies there and said,

“I need that Diane Von Furstenburg wrap dress please! I won’t take this skirt…thanks.”

I grabbed the dress, quickly ran back to my little corner and tried on 3 dresses that looked quite nice. A Trina Turk in silk, a Nordstrom maxi and a sexy fitted retro style in black velvet.  The others didn’t work. I sorted through the piles of clothing on the floor and started to get dressed.

Except there was one slight problem…

I had no top to wear.

Panic!!!

I kept saying, “WTF?” to myself over and over…going through each item on the floor.

It took me a few minutes to realize I’d handed out my blouse to the fitting room attendants instead of the damn skirt. They looked exactly alike when sitting bunched up on the floor. By that time I was sweating.

Remember, this was all taking place with everyone else in the massive cattle fitting room.

I had only my vest and leather jacket to wear out of there.

Biker chic yes…Suzanne style, no.

I went outside with my leather jacket on and tried to explain what had happened to the ladies outside.  They must have had a shift change because they were different ladies and none of them seemed to know what I was going on about. There were stacks and stacks of clothes in massive piles on tables by the fitting room that needed to be put away. I was told to look through there.  After a frantic search for my blouse nothing turned up.

I explained it was strange since I’d only taken the blouse out by mistake about 15 minutes beforehand and now it was nowhere to be found.

The disturbing thing was that I’d seen people going through those piles of clothes before, picking through them and taking items out. I started to really freak out when I figured out that someone could have taken my blouse from that pile, bought it and left the warehouse with it already!

Only I could go out shopping and literally lose the shirt off my back.

I was in full panic mode now. I mean I had no shirt to wear out of there! None of the women there seemed too concerned about the whole thing. I asked if we couldn’t go to the registers and tell all of the cashiers to be on the lookout for my blouse. It was embarassing and silly, but Hell, sometimes these things happen!  ( Well to me apparently sometimes…anyhow.) I mean seriously…what are the chances that I take two items that look exactly alike into a space that looks like a barn, am overly panicked to try them on as quickly as physically possible and mix up the two pieces?  It was the perfect (warehouse shit shopping) storm.

We went to the cash and after about 10 minutes of confusion and explaining the situation to three other people (ummm……frustrated much!?)  a girl finally agreed to take my information, should they happen to come across my blouse later in the day. I was wearing my leather jacket done all the way up since,

oh yeah…naked underneath!

When I was describing the item I’d lost, to the gal one of the ladies came back up from the fitting room with my blouse in her hand. She’d found it on a rack that had been taken to the back that one other lady had already “supposedly searched through”.

Hallelujah!

I wouldn’t be leaving this warehouse sale less one shirt and my dignity after all.

You might be wondering if I actually wanted to buy anything after that mess. Don’t be silly!  After all that hassle I wasn’t going home empty handed. I bought a maxi dress and a pair of shoes.

Have you ever had anything weird happen in a fitting room before? I once had to be cut out of a skirt at Anthropologie.

I’d love to hear some other stories. I know hope I’m not the only one that has a bizarre story to tell.

Linking up with the lovely Patti for Visible Monday  52 Pick-Me-Up