When I recently went to London I walked down New Bond Street en route to my club, and fell into the hands of a very pushy cosmetics seller! Selling for Orogoldcosmetics - remember the name!
So there I was, innocently meandering down the street, when this very personable young chap offered me a free sample. Which I took. Then we got to chatting, and he invited me in for 'another gift'. Well I had time and anyway I like gifts! So I went into the shop with him.
Instead of giving me a gift he started to smear some ointment around one of my eyes, and asked me to comment on the difference. I couldn't see a thing, with or without my glasses. Then he called a colleague for reinforcement, and asked him to say which of my eyes he had just treated. Surprisingly enough, the colleague knew immediately that it was the left one! Now I was getting suspicious!
Also I noticed the prices - £200 for a pot of face cream? Whatever wrinkles that stuff may take off my face, the worries of spending that kind of money on a fat & water mixture would put them straight back on! Meanwhile the young man started to flirt with me, telling me about my amazing skin and how I owed it to myself and my admirers to take care of it. So I told him about Lakura from Aldi, how great it was and how it was dirt cheap.
This did not go down well with him. Surely I could do better than that? He commented on my clothes, my bag, my haircut, and suggested that an elegant lady like myself couldn't possibly stoop to dirt cheap cosmetics? Then I told him about Oxfam, whence most of my clothes come from, and he became increasingly frustrated.
He started to rub some cream on to the back of my hand, and this resulted in little golden looking bits & pieces coming off. Apparently this was dead skin. 'If you do this to your face it will take years off your appearance!' intoned the fat purveyor. 'I like my dead skin,' I told him. 'It protects my live skin from sunburn and other hazards!'
'Your husband, the man you love, will dump you if you keep looking older!' I was now admonished. So I told him that I felt quite secure in the love of my man, and anyway he was growing older, too, and if I looked too young my sweetheart would get flack from all of his friends for being a cradle-snatcher. It was much better to grow old together gracefully!
'But your lady-friends, who you meet for lunch, they will all drop you if you don't keep up with them! It is so inconsiderate to let yourself go this way!' Hear that K and S and R? You had better start laying in to me for having the ill grace of growing older! As for the young man, I told him that I didn't hang out with people who were quite as vain as that.
'But every time you look into the mirror you will hate what you see!' he exclaimed in a last ditch effort to convert me. 'Not at all,' I told him firmly. 'I just keep the light bulb wattage low to make sure that the lighting doesn't pick up whatever imperfections I might possess. Much more economical, and less bother.'
At this he gave up and told me not to trip on my way out. But I wasn't finished with him yet. 'What about the present you promised me?' I asked innocently, making no attempt to leave. And you know what he said? He said, 'I have to go to the toilet now, excuse me.'
Dear me. I do hope he didn't throw up. Maybe he was just aching to wash his hands, to dispel any lingering scent of poverty my presence may have left on him.
As for me, I fairly skipped to my club, secure in my self-love, feeling the warm glow of having gotten the better of yet another pushy salesperson who cracked his teeth on the granite foundations of my parsimony!
By the way, I googled the company and its product, and found loads of similar stories - except most ended with the victim buying the product! I am so proud of myself!
