I thought: “I’m Totally Going to Blog about this Later.”

Customer service is an entirely different beast in Russia. There are the stores which have trained the employees to go after the buyer in “the American way,” which is the way of the hard sell, the up-sale, the “would you like to supersize your order” brand of Fordist capitalism.

There are the others where no one cares.

Also - I’ve always wondered why “extra medium” has remained relegated to the jokes and puns. I fit poorly into both mediums and larges, and I don’t feel like shelling out $50 a dress shirt to get them tailored specifically for my body – if there were to be an extra-medium, I think it would better approximate my life and the lives of quite a few people.

I mention this because I went shopping yesterday and found a buy-2-get-one-free t-shirt deal. I tried one on, found that the brand fell into the typical wear-a-medium-and-look-like-Eurotrash or wear-a-large-and-look-like-the-oracle-at-Delphi (because it’s a dress) conundrum. I went for M and pulled three off the rack.

Got home.

One of the shirts is on an “medium” hanger but the tag says it’s a large.

Crap. Initiate a 12-hour period of vacillation: do I want to, don’t I want to, should I, shouldn’t I, do I have time to, I don’t have time to.

In the end I left the archive early specifically so I could go and exchange the shirt.

Icarus: Hi, I was in yesterday and I accidentally bought the wrong size shirt. Here’s the receipt. Can I change it?

Clerk from Hell: If you have the shirt with you right now.

[ICARUS makes a little flicking motion with the shirt that’s currently in his hands and in her eye sight. CFH rolls her eyes.]

CFH: If we have one in the right size…

[ICARUS walks to the racks, finds a shirt on a medium hanger, the tag of which also says medium, and returns to the counter. CFH looks at it.]

CFH: This is also a large.

Icarus: No, it’s not.

CFH: I’m looking at the price tag. Yes, it is.

Icarus: Oh, that must just be an error, like how you put a ‘large’ t-shirt on a ‘medium’ hanger.

CFH: No, it’s a large.

Icarus: Look at any of the other tags on it and you’ll see the “M” for medium.

CFH: Aren’t you the guy who just bought a wrong-sized shirt?

Icarus: IT SAYS MEDIUM RIGHT HERE! GIVE ME THE DAMN TSHIRT!

I wish she had been the kind of saleswoman who asked if I needed fries with that.