Call me crazy but if it’s late October with a daytime high of 50 degrees and you own a swim shop, wouldn’t you eagerly greet and cater to every customer who walked in your door? Well, not at my local swim shop.

My son and I are coming from his weekly YMCA swim lesson where I noticed that his swim shirt is completely stretched out and his swim trunks are melting into two distinct shades of blue. Normally I would head to Target to buy such items but I know that they are not on the racks at this time of year. So I decide to try the swim shop. I’d never been there before, but it’s in a nearby strip mall.

We walk in with a young woman hot on our heels. When I stop just inside the door to orient myself and locate the boys’ section, the woman stops behind us and put on that fake I’m-being-patient-but-you-are-totally-in-my way expression that people use when they don’t want to be overtly rude but still want you to know that you are holding them up. I move out of her way and she heads over to the counter where she GOES BEHIND IT and puts her stuff down. So she actually works there and didn’t even bother to greet me when I came in! Not my idea of customer service. But it gets worse.

I move farther into the store, scanning for boy stuff. I find boy stuff but don’t see any shirts. Now this next part is just classic. I stand in the middle of the aisle and wait for someone to notice me and come help me. There are three people working in the small store: the won’t-say-hello salesperson up front, a young woman hanging up clothing an aisle over, and someone else in the back, unpacking stock. I turn in a circle and try to make eye contact with someone, anyone. All three ignore me. I say loudly to my son, “Do you see any swim shirts?” I don’t even listen for his response, I just wait to see if someone hears my query and rushes to my rescue. Nothing. Finally I go over to the woman an aisle away and say, “I need a swim shirt.” No “excuse me, do you have any swim shirts?” I’m too annoyed for that.

The young woman gets up and goes back to the rack I had just inspected and she pulls out a tiny swim shirt, sized for a toddler. Clearly this woman is an idiot and has no children.

“I think that’s a little small,” I say, politely.

She puts it back with no comment and searches for another. Finding nothing, she says, “I know there are some up front on the sale rack.” I say okay and head up there to check it out. I see many swim shirts but they all have girl bottoms attached to the hangers. I search the rack thoroughly and come up with nothing. So I go back and ask the same woman for help finding the shirts. She pulls out the ones with the girl bottoms.

“Here they are,” she says.

I just look at her like she’s an idiot. Can’t she see that these are for girls? I remind myself that she is an idiot and has no children. “Those are for girls,” I point out.

She looks at them again. “Just take the pants off,” she suggests.

Again I look at her as if she’s an idiot. The shirts have flowers on them. Now I’m all for gender-neutral clothing and play, but my son is getting to the age where boys start to be very sensitive about their gender. A little boy we had over for a playdate recently refused to eat banana slices out of a plastic cereal bowl because it was colored pink. Then he made fun of my son because my son has two babydolls. So I’m thinking that these swim shirts are not for us.

“I don’t think those will work,” I say.

“Well, that’s all we have,” she says, not sounding particularly sorry.

At this point I’ve had it with her and the store and I’m too annoyed to buy anything even if there were something for me to buy so I mumble a thanks and blow that joint. I drive home fast and honk at several people just because. Then I get more annoyed because I’m just passing around all that bad karma. When we get home I decide to fix my day with chocolate chip cookies. Bad customer service can always be fixed with chocolate chip cookies.

Last 5 posts by OrganizerMom

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