LACOSTE V. AMERICAN RAG

I'm standing in the aisle at Macy's. I was sent home from work at Joe's Crab Shack early after making astoundingly good tips. I have decided to treat myself: I'm shopping at the mall.

I never go to the mall. It makes me feel like a consumer. Like maybe I'm consuming the water and air and creating fiscal debt and inequality just by being there. And I certainly never buy new things for myself. I trick other people into doing that for me.

So I'm at Macy's, and I've been enjoying being there alone, because I feel all growed up. Here I am, looking at men's suits (maybe I should buy one for that big board meeting coming up?). Here I am looking at dress shoes (new shoes for the trip to Aruba?). Here I am talking to a sales associate (no, I don't need help, thank you, I am not looking for anything specific, just anything that strikes my fancy; I'm wealthy enough to just toss money around like this, yes, I am famous, of course).

And here I am in the aisle at Macy's between two diametrically opposed sections of the menswear area. On my left: Lacoste polos of every color. On my right, American Rag and Levi's messy-trendy-college-chic-I-rolled-out-of-bed-and-put-on-these-designer-clothes.

I'm standing on the border of Bosnia and Yugoslavia.

Each section has different music. The Lacoste area features something upbeat and new age. There is a saxophone solo, some piano. It's very Windham Hill. The American Rag/Levi area is all switches from Dave Matthews Band to pumping techno to Jack Johnson. It sounds like any typical college guy's IPOD on shuffle.

Each section has different sales associates, both dressed appropriately for their areas, and both glaring at each other.

I browse each section, and consider buying a Lacoste down vest when I realize that I can buy a hat, a pair of jeans, and a nice tee shirt for the same price with American Rag. And I can do it all without feeling like I'm masquerading as something I'm not. I can pull off ripped jeans and a camo shirt. The pink polo with the collar flipped up is not really my style.

As I work toward the exit, bag of clothes in hand, I am assaulted by a sales associate bearing a tiny vial of cologne. She sprays it in my trajectory, I cross through it, and she says, "CAN I INTEREST YOU IN SOME RALPH LAUREN FRAGRANCES TODAY?!"

"No, thank you," I reply.

"HOLD ON? TRY THIS ONE?" She says this as if it were a question. Try this one? She sprays another fragrance at me without hesitation.

"That's nice, but no, thank you."

"COME TO THE COUTNER? WE HAVE MORE FRAGRANCES FOR YOU TO SAMPLE?" I invent an excuse to escape.

"I'm sorry – Karen, is it? – but I have pressing matters to attend to. I have to get these clothes home for my nephew. He's going off to Burma today, and I've just purchased him some parting gifts. Maybe another time. Thank you!"

I leave Karen to stew in the cloud of cologne and escape Macy's (quick, before Karen realizes I am wearing a Joe's Crab Shack uniform and am not rich or famous at all!), and, as I exit, my cell phone beeps. Someone has text messaged me.

I pull the phone out, pretend it is ringing, and answer it.

No one has called me, but something within me decides that it would be a good idea to pretend someone has called. So I stand outside the mall for thirty minutes pretending to talk with a friend from London. In this conversation, I am from London. Part of my faux-conversation goes like this:

"Cor! She did not! That Tina is a right slag! It don't matter if she's knackered or not, she can't be holdin' out on Tommy, innit! He's a man, and he has needs. Right? Right? Am I right?"

I am copying a dialect I heard while in London. It's sort of a street slang. In Britain, they call people who talk like that Chavs. In the USA, we call them wiggers.

Families, couples, strange single men. All pass by me and stop to stare. Who is this odd British man talking on his cell phone at this mall in the Midwest of America? I start to run out of conversational things to say and start shouting out random words and phrases I learned while in London a few years ago.

"Blimey!" (shit!)

"Sarnies, we ate sarnies." (sandwiches)

"No, I'm out of cash, I need to get to a hole-in-the-wall." (I need to get to an ATM)

"Am I bovered?" (Do I sound angry?)

"Alright?" (Are you okay?)

"Innit!" (No way!)

When I exhaust all my phrases, I hang up my cell phone, and march off into the parking lot, looking for the entire world like a rich and famous British Chav, off to give some clothes to my nephew, who is headed to Burma, didn't you know? Except I am wearing a uniform for an American restaurant. And I am driving an American car as if I have always driven in America. And I own an American cell phone (which I call a cell and not a mobile, like Brits mostly do). And I drive back to my modest American home where I plan to go see an American film with my American friends. American.