Housewares and Lingerie

(Originally published October 21, 2005 in wysiwyg. Reprinted with permission from the guy in the mughshot.)


A woman's place is in the kitchen. Well, when she's not in the bedroom, anyway.

Now, if this was my opinion, it would be even easier for you to understand why I'm still single. And you'd have some choice words for me, I'm sure.

But it's not my opinion. It's apparently the opinion of retailer J.C. Penney. Stick with me here and I'll explain it.

I was working today on a feature about a dinner for needy folks the local Catholic church sponsors once a month. One of my sources for the story, who works outside her home, called me from her job at the aforementioned retailer. But I was in the car, driving back to the office, and I asked if I could call her back when I got to my desk.

So when I got back to the office, I dialed the number: (405) 755-5500. No one at Penney's was available to answer my call, so I got the dreaded automated message/extension prompt system:

"For the salon, press one. 
"For the catalog or credit departments, press two 
"For the home or children's departments, press three 
"For housewares or lingerie, dial extension 268..."

Huh? Housewares or lingerie? What? Are they in the same department or something? So if I go to the store and ask a sales person to point me to the food processors, I guess he or she will say something like this: "follow this carpet all the way to the next wall and take a left. You'll find our complete line of KitchenAid small appliances off to the left, right next to the red lace teddies."

I'm not making this message thing up, lest you think I would take creative liberties with the facts on wysiwyg. Call the number if you don't believe me. Best to wait until after store hours to make sure you get the recorded system. Otherwise, there's a slight chance a real employee might answer the phone. Then you'll have the awkward task of explaining to that person that you really wanted to hear the recorded message and can she transfer you to it or do you need to hang up and call again? Been there, done that when I called back to make sure I wasn't hallucinating on Diet Dr. Pepper the first time I heard the message.

Thing is, it's not like they couldn't group the lingerie, at least for the purposes of their phone message, with the women's department. And they do have one, because the rest of the message goes like this:

"For the women's department, press four 
"For custom decorating, press five 
"For the men's department, press six 
"For shoes, press eight, 
"For all other calls, yada yada yada..."
Wouldn't you think that lingerie would fall under the domain of the women's department? I mean, absent the male members of the Boy George or Michael Jackson fan clubs and guys who think Texas Hold Em is a sport, women tend to be the primary consumers of lingerie. But even men buy kitchen appliances.

Old stereotypes die hard, I guess. Now if I could just find some sweet young thang to fill my pipe, and then go fetch my slippers....