On the playing fields of the big warehouse sale,women show the stuff they’re made of

I have an idea that women are better equipped, psychologically, to deal with chaos than men are.

If you want proof, go to a department store sale with your wife.

I had the innocent idea that I would drop in on the big Robinson’s warehouse sale at the Pasadena store a week ago last Thursday--the opening day for regular customers.

I had a dental appointment in Pasadena at 9 o’clock that morning and thought I would just drive on over to Robinson’s afterwards, maybe pick up some sports clothes.

As I neared the store, traffic began to thicken. There was no room in the store’s parking structure. People were swarming toward the store like people heading toward a major sports event--the Super Bowl, or a public hanging; or maybe a dire catastrophe. It took me half an hour just to extricate myself from the traffic jam.

Saturday morning my wife left the house to take the laundry and do her other chores and said, “I might just drop by Robinson’s--see if it’s any less crowded.”

Like me, she didn’t even get out of her car. There were lines of people waiting to get in the entrances.

Monday we both went to Pasadena for my rehabilitation class and decided to try Robinson’s again. After all, the sale was five days old by then--it should have worn down some.

The parking structure was still full, but I found a place on the street nearby and we approached the store from the rear.

It looked like the day after something. Food was being served from blue and yellow striped tents. There was a tent labeled First Aid. Standing by was an ambulance.

We had no sooner got inside than my wife pulled off to the women’s shoe department, where thousands of shoes were piled on tables.

I walked into the men’s department. Vast tables were heaped high with shirts, pants and jackets. Racks of coats and suits stood all about on movable trucks.

People all about me seemed to know what they were doing. Women evidently were shopping for their husbands--fishing garments from heterogeneous piles, checking the tags, throwing them back like unwanted fish or tucking them under their arms.

Finally I saw a very macho -looking jacket that I thought I might be able to wear at the exercise class. Knock ‘em out. It was made in Italy. The Italians seem to make the most macho -looking clothes for men. Maybe it’s because they haven’t yet turned androgynous in Italy. Men are supposed to look like men and women like women.

The original price had been $110. There wasn’t any sale price on it, and I couldn’t see anyone to ask how much it was. No salesman came to my assistance. I’m used to having someone come up and say, “Can I help you, sir?” Or “That looks very good on you, sir.”

I decided to try it on. It was too bulky.

I got discouraged and went back to women’s shoes. By then my wife had bought five pairs of shoes and was trying to buy a sixth.

“The trouble is,” she said, “all we can find is the left one.”

The saleswoman was trying to find its mate for her. I wondered how my wife had managed to get the undivided attention of a saleswomen in all that turmoil.

“It must be right here on one of these tables,” she said, pawing around over the hundreds of shoes on a nearby table. I soon noticed that all the shoes on the table were for the right foot.

“Yes,” she explained. “That’s the way it works. You find the one you like, and they go get the box for you, from stock.”

“How come you have a left one then?” I asked.

She didn’t know.

I figured it out. Some woman had found the right shoe and liked it and asked to see the mate, and the saleswoman had gone and found the mate and brought it to her; but the customer changed her mind, so she threw both of them back on the table, and they soon got separated.

“So that means,” I said, “that the right shoe is still here someplace.”

I started looking for it again.

“It’s no use,” she said finally. “She’ll call me.”

The saleswoman had taken her name and phone number and said she’d call her when the shoe turned up.

The shoes she had bought were only $19.99 a pair, so we got out of women’s shoes for only $100.

“I’d just like to look at some blouses,” she said.

In the women’s department I lost her in a labyrinth of racks but suddenly I heard her say, “How do you like this?”

She was standing behind me, holding a dress against herself.

“It’s fine,” I said.

She tucked it under one arm and went hunting down the rack and found a long chemise-like dress that was sort of a raspberry, or mauve.

“It’s cashmere,” she said, caressing the word.

“It’s beautiful,” I admitted.

I wondered why it wasn’t as crowded where we were as it had been elsewhere in the store.

“This is what the salesgirls call the high-rent district,” she explained. “Things are more expensive.”

“Oh,” I said.

She tried the dress on and decided to buy it and go on a diet.

“Good idea,” I agreed.

So my shopping adventure was a failure; but in less than an hour and a half she had managed to spend $300.

I guess they just know how to cope.