July 28th, 2008

i just want to know what it is! and other life lessons learned at lush.

Have you ever gone inside a Lush store? The first thing that assaults you is the smell (I seriously cannot imagine how people manage to work there); the second thing is the salespeople. Lush employees are the pushiest, most annoying people in any store I’ve ever been in—and I’ve been in a lot.

The Chop’s sister works for a Lush, and she’s managed to get us hooked on a couple of products, thereby forcing us to go to the store when we run out (yeah, we could order it online, but shipping can run up to $10… not worth it). However, after yesterday’s debacle (one of many), we’ve decided to bite the bullet on the shipping, simply to save our sanity.

We always walk in fast, angle around everyone, grab what we need and head to the counter. The goal here is to a) not make eye contact with anyone, b) get exactly what we need as quickly as possible and c) checkout and flee, so that I can once again breathe the free air (the fumes, oh my god, the fumes).

The mall was the place to be yesterday (torrential thunderstorms), so the store was crowded, but there was only one person ahead of us in line (score!), so I think this is where I lost my concentration.

The checkout chick wrapped the soap of those ahead of us and that somehow set her off on a tangent about how she took online origami. Don’t. ask.

Finally, our turn! We set our stuff down (two things of each—we don’t like to run out) and waited to be rung up.

Oh my gosh, you have TWO things of Big [shampoo I am addicted too—damn his sister!] and you don’t have any Veganese?!

OK, their products, I swear, are named so that you’re stuck saying, uh what?

You DO use the Veganese, right?!

Um, what’s Veganese?

It’s the conditioner! You MUST buy it!

(And now here is where the lack of concentration comes into play….)

I don’t use conditioner (I was actually thinking wtf, and when that came out, I realized my grave error.)

WHAT?! You have to use conditioner!

Random other girl who works there and is halfway across the room… Not conditioning is SO BAD for your hair! (While looking at me in disgust.)

If I give you a sample of Veganese, will you try it?!

Sure, why not. (At this point, hi, just want to flee. Chop is trying not to bust a gut laughing—knowing that I’ve stepped in heaping pile of shit—and I just want all of them to quit looking at me like I mistreat my hair. It’s HAIR people, and YES, I condition, but I don’t use your conditioner. I use CHEAP conditioner, since I spend so much freaking money on your damn shampoo.)

The rest of the time checking out I got a lecture about using conditioner, she kept saying, but isn’t it dry and stringy? and I kept saying, nope, no, nope, great hair, no problems.

Sigh.

When we finally managed to escape, Chop pointed out my error… the “what is Veganese” question. But here’s the thing… it’s called VEGANESE. How do you NOT want to know what the fuck that is?