The Pink Ladies

We all remember "The Pink Ladies" in the movie Grease. They walked around strutting their stuff, trying to make everyone else feel inferior. After an encounter I had yesterday, I'm thinking that a new gang of Pink Ladies has started to take over the land--Mary Kay people.

If you are a Mary Kay person, or love their products, I'm sorry if this offends you, but after you read of my experience, I think you will understand.

Over the years, I've been approached by many people who sell Mary Kay and want me to use their products, or be a consultant. I used to use the products and liked them well enough, but have NO desire to sell the stuff no matter what kind of discount I would get. In all my encounters in the past, I have never been made to feel so uncomfortable by a Pink Lady as I did yesterday.

I was at TJ Maxx--alone. J, L and O were at school, and K was with my mom. So, I was browsing through the shoes when I noticed this woman staring at me. Thinking that maybe I knew her from somewhere and just didn't remember, I sort of smiled to be polite and moved on. She followed me into the next aisle of shoes. "Is she following me?" I wondered. Then I thought that maybe I was making too much of it.

So, I walked to the sale section where everything is just weird leftovers from summer in sizes like 6 or 11 and THERE SHE WAS AGAIN.

She turned her back and I darted into the little girls' section and pretty soon, THERE SHE WAS AGAIN. This time she started staring at me a little more and I clutched my purse close to me, had my hand on my cell phone and was getting ready to kick her and call 911.

Then she spoke in her big smiley voice, "Hi," she gushed. "I love your coat. Where did you get your coat if you don't mind me asking?"

I mumbled something about getting it for Christmas a couple years ago and scooted away from her. She kept smiling at me through perfectly lined lips. I was officially freaked out and thought about running to the front of the store, jumping in my van and driving away, but I was afraid she was a psychopath that would just follow me. I decided to find a place where there were more people so if she tried to attack me, there would at least be witnesses. I made my way into the boys' section and tried to keep an eye out for her. Within about 30 sections, THERE SHE WAS AGAIN.

I saw her walking towards me this time in her very high heeled boots, purse held like she was going to open it with her perfectly manicured fingernails. She flipped her ponytail, batted her very well made up eyes and said, "I'm just going to ask you this...would you consider being a face model for me?"

While I'm not sure what look I had on my face at this point, I'm pretty sure it was something between, "Get away from me you weirdo" and "What the heck are you talking about."

She went on to explain while she thrusted a business card at me, "I'm annoying Mary Kay woman who likes to stalk people in stores (she actually gave me her name at this point)and I like the way your skin looks. And, I would really like a fair skinned model at my next..."

At this point, I tuned her out and was trying to think of a way to reach in my pocket and make my cell phone magically ring. I have no idea how she finished her sentence because all I could think was, "You've got to be kidding me?????? Who chases people around stores??????? I will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER sell Mary Kay. I would rather work at McDonald's than be a PINK LADY."

Then I remembered from my neighbor who is the least pushy Mary Kay person in the world, that if you mention you already know someone in Mary Kay to a consultant, she should back off since you technically have a consultant already. The stalker lady wasn't going to back down and she continued to ramble on and on when I decided to pull out the big guns.

I know one of the national sales directors for THE PINK LADIES because her son used to play on Jonah's soccer team. I figured mentioning her name to Stalker Lady would make her go away--but it didn't...because she knew her...on a personal level...and she is going to the national sales director's house in Florida for Thanksgiving! All this did was prolong our conversation and cause me to have to explain how I knew her and that took us into a conversation about children. Oh, it was endless and I just wanted to shop in peace.

After finally freeing myself, I headed straight for the door, ran to my van, and drove off fast.

I don't understand how this is good salesmanship. It is NOT o.k. to follow a person around a store. It's weird. The worst part about this is that now that she knows that I know the national sales director chick, she can find out my phone number and something tells me that if she's the type of person to follow someone around a store, she won't be a bit shy about getting my number and calling.

Thank goodness for caller ID.