A Day At Work

(Posted by Nick, '11)
One day during October Break at work, (I work at JCPenney) I was assigned to the Young Men's quad. Just behind it is men's shoes. This woman walked up to the quad, where me and another customer service associate were standing, and asked if we could help her find a shoe. We said we didn't work in that dept and referred her to the associate who was. She said, "Nonono - I want YOU because you're young - you know what's trendy, what's on the cutting edge."

I was like oooooook.... Her husband, who she was shopping for, is 53. I'm 18.

She wanted a slip-on shoe for her husband. I really don't like the moccasin look, so I showed her one that was slightly less casual, but definitely not dressy. She wanted something "fresh."

So she looked it over, looked right at me and goes "Look at all this stitching, though.... Don't you think it's a little too gay?"

A few things:

1. There was NOT a lot of stitching on the shoes.
2. In any case, how the hell does excessive STITCHING make something look GAY?
3. She went on to say the same thing about various shoes about 3 more times.
4. It almost got to the point where I wanted to say, "Ma'am, I'd love to help you find a nice pair of shoes for your husband, but quite frankly, I think I'm a little TOO GAY to do that."

I know for a fact that she wasn't using "gay" as a word synonymous with "stupid." I think she was really truly concerned with if the shoes would make her husband look gay... And so I thought to myself my God, what a world we live in nowadays, that women can't even count on their being married to their husbands to establish the fact that they're straight.
In all seriousness though, this was a wake-up call for me - in the "Vassar bubble" you (or at least, I) never hear that word being used in a negative way. If anything "gay" is a compliment on Vassar campus. It just made me realize that Vassar is NOT the world, and that we, the collective we, have a LOT to do if we ever hope to establish full social equality for queers one day.