Without these...
Monday was an "Open call" day at Bendel's. Or as our showroom more appropriately called it, a "cattle call" where designers of all sorts of goods, are given approximately 60 seconds to put on their selling tap dance (lots of Jazz hands) for one buyer... in a room filled with buyers and designers doing their own routines. Shannon and I arrived on the chilly cloudy Monday morning shortly before 9am. Much to our dismay there was a line wrapping an entire block (who knew people would be there at 5am with thermoses and wool blankets? what's is this, a Dead Show?), and we plopped ourselves at the end. Both in far too springy clothing we paced around and chatted with others in line. When we knew this line was going to take its sweet time I decided to hop on the subway and take TC for a walk (his first morning in the crate alone!), grab some extra layers and meet Shannon who would still be patiently waiting in line.
Right?
Wrong.
I rushed out of the apartment with the pup, plopped him on the sidewalk, heard my front door latch and felt for my keys. Phone, check. Plastic baggie, check. Doggie treat, check. Keys? Nope. I checked again. Still not there. I reached through my pocket holes (oops) and felt the whole bottom hem, heart pounding. Nothing. No roomates home. I was penniless, with a dog, with the brown and white stripes waving on 5th Ave beckoning me back up town. Panicked I jumped in a cab, met Shannon who paid, and TC, Shannon and I huddled under one umbrella in the freezing rain with our awkward hanging bags for over 2 hours. TC cried, Shannon lost feeling in her toes, and I continued to dread the moment we got to the door and they said "wet dog in Bendels? Take a hike lady"... As luck would have it they ushered all three of us through and I prayed and prayed and prayed that he not pee on their floor. Okay, Ill be honest - I even crouched in the corner of the waiting room with him on paper towels hoping he would pee so it wasn't in front of a buyer. As luck would have it a second and a third time he did not pee and a girl organizing the line fell in love with Teacake and offered to hold him while we spoke with a buyer. Disheveled and frizzy haired we may have been. We may have kicked half our samples on the floor, bumbled over broken wooden hangers, and thrown our linesheets at the buyer, but she was nice. She was receptive, and she was complimentary. We've learned not to hold our breath in these situations but we're glad we did it and still have a hope something will come of it. And as miserable as we were I just managed to come up with three lucky things that happened. There is always a silver lining. The girl behind us and her boyfriend were stuck with $200 worth of tickets because of a parking mistake. Monetarily it just cost us a few cabs and gave us a good hindsight laugh... So cross your fingers for us and don't ever leave your walk-up apartment without keys in hand - especially when Henri is calling.
