My name is Beth and I'm haunted by the deal that got away

by Beth Teitell
Thursday, June 13, 2002

You know how sometimes you're too stupid to recognize a bargain even when it's staring you in the face, and then when the light finally does goes off (hours later) you spend the rest of the day - or the rest of your life - kicking yourself?

I'm in that situation, thanks to a Ralph Lauren T-shirt.

Rube that I am, when I first spotted the shirt at Filene's Basement in Newton I thought it was unforgettable, but - even on deep, deep discount - overpriced.

And I wonder why I don't have a golden retriever and a yacht and a sun-kissed tan. It's because even when given the opportunity to tap into a little part of the Ralph lifestyle, I don't know enough to take it.

I'm embarrassed to admit this because it makes me look like like the kind of person who, if she worked at a publishing house, would have read ``Valley of the Dolls'' and passed on it, but at the time, $35 seemed expensive for a shirt that didn't even come in a color I liked.

But once I left the store, the shirt started to work on me. Sure, $35 is twice as much as I usually spend on a gym shirt, but - here's what's getting me - it was marked down from $225.

I had examined it really closely and it looked like a $14.50 Gap shirt, but what do I know?

``You know the saying,'' a friend said when I told her about the shirt, ``You don't know what you don't know.''

``You don't know what you're not seeing that makes the shirt worth $225,'' she said.

That's what I was afraid of.

Seeking insight, I called Ralph Lauren's people down in New York and put the question to a spokeswoman. Donald Rumsfeld would have been more forthcoming. If only he was in women's wear.

First she pretended she couldn't possibly comment on the shirt because she didn't have enough information. When I provided her with the label color (black) and style number (170714B), she then said she'd have to ``confirm'' the information, and was awaiting a call back from someone in the OverPriced Shirt Division (my description, not hers).

She sounded like a seasoned publicist, but since my question apparently threw her, I took pity and tried to help her out. ``Maybe it's so expensive because of the cut and the high-quality cotton and the styling,'' I offered. But she didn't take my gift - I guess she would have needed to confirm it first.

Despite other calls pleading for comment, I never heard back.

In the meantime, I happened to be at another Filene's Basement and, lo and behold, there was my shirt (as I had come to think of it). Except this time there wasn't a large selection of hideous colors, there was just one, the blue, and only in a small.

Still, when life gives you a second chance you have to take it, so I was ready to compromise, but the shirt was too tight to wear out, even to the gym, so I left the Basement and headed for a support group I'd heard about for Women Who Love Bargains Too Much.

A cute young blonde was relating her tale of woe when I walked in.

``I'm telling you it was something my invalid grandmother would have worn,'' she said.

She described a pale-green polyester BCBG dress ($150 marked down to $20) with a drawstring neck and cap sleeves. ``I wore it once and I took a look in the mirror and I said `I look like hospital patient,' '' she said. ``I threw it away.''

The facilitator greeted me. ``Hello, Beth, do you have a story to share?''

Sobbing, I told the group about my feelings of loss.

The blonde looked at me with tears in her eyes, and an empty hole in her heart where her $20 bill had once been.

``You were lucky,'' she said. ``You dodged a bullet.''