Day 15. Sales Assistants Robbing Me Blind

Today was another early start and I filled my head with the excitement of...visiting the post office. You can tell things are getting a tad dull this end.

After spending time yesterday selecting my 20 agents I made way down to the post office, same bus procedure. Wait 20 minutes and then enjoy the wonderful welcoming smile of a bus driver who should be modelling for Playboy and schmoozing with the likes of Nelson Mandela. 

As I arrived at the post office there was a queue outside the door. Not too dissimilar to England so far. The stamps that ‘lady’ sold me in Staples...who was unaware of the concepts of stamps until I questioned the prices are now redundant. It’s a dollar ten per stamp (again, not to dissimilar to England). Odd as the old Irish lady next to me whom kept repeating ‘it goin te Ireland’ and couldn’t get over how cheap her stamp was at $1. So it’s cheaper to send a letter abroad than it is to send a letter within the same country? Back home I could call Liz and tell her the floors in such pricing. And that her postal system wasn’t up to scratch. Here, no such luck. I reluctantly paid another $16 on stamps and realised I’d spent $75 on these 20 letters. ‘All an investment, all an investment, all an investment’. I had to keep repeating myself. It bought me down from a level 8.

Pottered around town and admired a jumper I wanted. ‘You know sir, that’s the last of them. Once they’re gone that’s it’. How could I resist? I mean once they’re gone they’re gone! And he seemed like a nice guy even if he was a bit too enthusiastic to get me into the changing rooms and try it on. I checked for secret cameras. It was safe. To the check out and greeted with a slight arrogance from the same sales assistant. Then our friendship went South.

‘Do you have ID sir?’ I’ve been ID’d for alcohol where ever I go and the cinema. I will NOT show any ID for a jumper. ‘ID, what do I need that for’? I said angrily, and he knew it...I backed down pretty quick and I wanted the jumper, so I showed ID. I was angry and he could see that. ‘Security sir...blah blah blah’. He’d sucked me in good, made a sale and to him I was just another number.

Back home and Tris had a casting in West Hollywood. He dropped me off at Beverly Hills mall and I aimlessly walked around until hunger kicked in and I got food. A little Chinese later I started to get America’s version of Delhi belly. Like a child I think I’d drunk too many fizzy drinks today, I was on the bad end of a sugar come down.

‘Sir would you like some tea’. I chuckled to myself. Tea? You don’t even know the meaning of it. Well, it was herbal, he seemed to have an Asian background and at the risk of treading on eggshells maybe he did know something about tea. Hang on a minute; I was now inside the shop. How did this happen? He started his sales pitch with ‘sir, have you heard of cast iron’? Which annoyed me straight. Is this guy serious? ‘Yes of course I’ve heard of cast iron’. I quipped back. He was genuinely surprised I had...a few week pitches later he asked ‘so should I go ahead and wrap this up’. No don’t ‘go ahead and wrap this up’. You’ve happened to gloss over the cost. ‘This whole set is $650’. ‘You’re joking’ and I walked away. Checked myself in a mirror in case some practical joker had stuck Prada and Gucci stickers on me and that’s where Mr Tea got the impression I’d pay that sort of money for something that can cost £10 in ASDA.

Met back up with Tris and we had another BritsinLA meeting to attend. A premier of the film Pirates. From Ardmann, the guys who bought us Wallace and Gromit. It was very good and I wouldn’t expect anything less from them. Although I couldn’t stop thinking throughout ‘odd how these are supposed to be networking and yet we’re all sat in silence in a cinema’. And then a joke distracted me.

Day ended in allegedly Jennifer Aniston’s favourite restaurant in LA. A Mexican which was nice, but then someone as prestigious as Jennifer Aniston tars a restaurant you have high expectations. I bet they love that she’s said that, but if I was a manager I’d be angry. I’d want a critic to say ‘very average and competitively priced’. I myself turned into quite a pedantic critic whilst I was there. To the point where the food was too good to moan about so I noticed the plastic table cloth and thought ‘surely this wasn’t here when Jen visits’? It couldn’t leave my mind and I left confused rather than full and satisfied.

Lesson leant: you can’t polish a turd, but if you wrap it in enough glitter you might get away with it.