Photo by Lauren Fleischmann on Unsplash
By Caribbean Comedian Onicia Muller
I worked ten-hour days without chatty coworkers, annoying pop music, or hovering managers. Massimo Dutti was the perfect gig for quick vacation cash. I ain’t care that they sequestered me to the upstairs closet like some tacky, out-of-season Quasimodo.
I embraced my inner fashion warehouse ninja and mastered the art of stacking. Upside. Downside. Eight shirts? New stack! Repeat.
The game changed when a blouse made from mulberry silk fell out of the protective plastic. See, I thought my blouse was serving high-fashion realness. Well, I dipped in a corner, checked my tag aaand I’m wearing poly-freaking-cheaper-than-satin-ester.
Mulberry Silk might sound like some decrepit pimp whose top ho only has one good eye and no front teeth but it. is. not.
Thinking my polyester top could pass for mulberry silk is like one-dollar Kanekalon braids trying to pass for virgin human hair. Stop it.
Massimo Dutti locked me in that room to keep their clientele from brushing up against polyester and having an allergic reaction to poverty.
My peasant fingers eagerly stroked everything. That free education in fabrics taught me that fur and leather are played out; real fashion bosses wear silk, linen, cashmere, and camel. I took this job to earn extra vacation coins, but now I want to buy everything.
Fo’hunnid kidneys? Not for no camel coat! Three fiddy zollarz? Blouses been overrated. Amma pull my skirt up over my nipples. Das a dress.
The only thing I could afford was a discounted sock. Not the pair, just the one sock. I’d probably need a three-month payment plan to boot.
How much would a full-time Quasimodo earn at Massimo? The employee discount on top of a sale would deff make that sock more affordable. I done already peeped some good hiding places. I could also maybe have a friend buy some items and return them just before a sale.
Sadly, my best bet was skipping meals, ignoring bills, and defaulting on my student loan payments to afford even the cheapest garment.
Choops. That plan would take too long. I needed serious money fast. What I really needed was to start a pyramid scheme, multi-level marketing company, network marketing company business opportunity guaranteeing a six-figure income to some sucker entrepreneurial-minded go-getter.
All I really wanted was one cashmere sock to rub between my fingers at night like a pocket-size security blanket.
Although a camel coat could be money well spent. If I slink into the coat (nothing underneath cause me can’t afford anything else) and cop a free makeover at the MAC counter, ya gyal could be someone’s third wife before lunch. Then I’d be able to buy both socks.
Shout out to PETA for making animal skins unfashionable. Y’all like schools that enforce dress codes, so poor students don’t feel left out.
Photo by Elizabeth McQuern
Award-winning Caribbean comedian, Onicia Muller’s weekly humour column, Just Being Funny is chicken soup for the naive sceptic’s soul. You can hire her to write anything from blogs and newsletters to bathroom poetry funny greeting cards. Join her newsletter for funny stories and stand-up comedy. OniciaMuller.com
