I think it's in our blood, Robert, to happily tell of our "metziahs" [finds]...whether or not we're prompted to do so.

But you do know, Robert, that when you're complimenting these women, you're making their husbands look bad. "Look, Ron, Robert commented on my one-of-a-kind necklace; you probably don't even notice if I wear it or not!"

Great post.

Pearl:

Well of course it's in female nature. But don't tell anyone in our universities where they are determined to teach that male and female nature are "social constructs."

As for making husbands look bad. The guys, all my friends, were on to my "experiment" and they just smiled, tolerantly and with great affection. Afterall, without Karen, I tend to get a bit unhinged.

Glad you enjoyed the post.

I loved this... I was on the phone with my mother-in-law when I started scanning through and I stopped and read it to her. Soooooo funny.... I'm glad to hear the husbands realized, though because I also thought like Pearl - that you made them look bad. They would never compliment/notice/care about these things.

SS:

The husbands are fine. Believe me they get their moments of narrative: ask the husbands about the latest ball game. They don't just tell you the final score. Nooooo, they give you a numbing, blow-by-blow account of how the game-- be it baseball, football, basketball, or even hockey--got to said final score. Ask my male friends from shul about their annual fishing trip, and oh boy, get ready to endure some incredibly long-winded Hemingway style slash Jewish fishing tales.

This one was fun!

I agree that the noticing-and-complimenting part is in female nature, but the "I got it on sale" part may well be restricted to the Jewish-American female genome. Out here in the boondocks (Jerusalem) I neither have nor overhear conversations quite like the ones you describe so hilariously.

Sara:

I have heard this conversation countless times among non-Jewish women in the film industry. The structure is the same.

1. Compliment is given on object.
2. Compliment is accepted. History of purchase is detailed in mind-numbing detail -- sans yiddishisms.
3. Great emphasis on savings.
4. Even greater emphasis on the medieval suffering the female body goes through in the name of adornment. Conclusion being: "It's soooo worth it."

As for not hearing this conversation in Israel, I can only say:

1. Move to ritzier neighborhood. If that fails...
2. Open a Loehmann's in Israel, above conversation will sprout like weeds.

no way i'd share these stories with guys - they're not interested (or only pretending interest like you). only reason i'd do it was if i didn't want to give the impression that i was high maintenance.

Mata Hari:

You are mistaken in assuming that I was not interested in the stories. More likely, I was not clear enough in my writing. For this, I apologize.

In fact, I was deeply engrossed in what the ladies were telling me.

Look, men are, by nature, hunter/gatherers who speak of stalking the hunt, the kill, and dressing the game, usually in greatly exagerrated terms.

Women declaim about adornment. Trekking to endless stores, searching for just that right skirt, that perfect black dress. Finding the correct fit. My goodness, I get it, I really do. The search and the discovery is no small matter. It is a universe wrapped within a universe.

What I find most amazing, revealing, mysterious, stunning is: female pride in suffering. How many women have told me how they teeter on the edge of being "horribly crippled" in order to mince about in their "delicious" Manolo Blahnik's?

No Mata Hari, I was mesmerized by these passionate shopping and suffering narratives--Homeric they are--for in the process of the telling this is what was revealed to this male about the female soul:

1. The impulse to feel and appear oh-so-beautiful.
2. The need to purchase accessories as cheaply as possible. The "metziah," the "bargain," is clearly as important as the final purchase.
3. The overwhelming desire to transform the shopping narrative into a core experience of one's life.
4. Thus the birth of a personal folk tale.

Now Mata Hari, here's the Seraphic Secret Suggestion for that oh-so-important "Not High Maintenance" conversation.

Him: Nice skirt.
Mata Hari: Thank you. I sewed it myself.
Him: Really, that's amazing!
Mata Hari: Not really. I design and sew my whole wardrobe. Can't understand spending hard-earned money on clothing that's been marked up like 7000%. I mean, is that reasonable economics?
Him: Will you marry me?

LOL!

I do the same, but for books, rather than clothes. Whenever someone asks about a book I'm reading, something prompts me to tell the person what the book is about, where I got it, who recommended it to me, etc. : ) (whereas I like acquiring clothes, I hate the process of shopping for it, so I usually respond to accessories-related compliments very briefly)

Irina:

How nice to hear from you. It's been far too long.

Great observation. Of course there are some women who hate to shop and transfer the female shopping impulse to other endeavours.

Books is a wonderful area and I thank you for bringing it to our attention.

Book-spending is most definitely blog-worthy and I have made a note to sit down at some point and write a blog, maybe a few blogs, about my "History of Buying Books."

Wacky, to say the least.

By the way, I hate shopping too. Really, really hate it. I have not been in a brick and mortar store for, well, I cannot count the years. I buy all my clothing, including my suits, shirts and ties, exclusively from: L.L. Bean, and Land's End. I purchase books, DVD's and everything else on-line at Amazon.com and a few other specialty sites.

The only "real" store I ever enter anymore is: "Martin B. Retting, Inc., a fine gun and ammo shop in Culver City.

Book-spending is most definitely blog-worthy and I have made a note to sit down at some point and write a blog, maybe a few blogs, about my "History of Buying Books."
--------------------

That sounds good. Of course I get books incredibly cheap.

Nowadays a lot of people know to get them on Amazon.com or HAlf.com (or ebay) where you can even LOOK for a specific book and get it cheaply.

Jewish books can be gotten in Frankls in Boro Park on 16th Avenue between 49 St and 50 St There is a whole wall full of books at half price or less - and because many are one-of-a-kind -- a much better selection. There are more books than there were a few years ago. Jewish Observer magazine is also there - for 75 cents I think - going back a few years. Hebrew (only) books are downstairs.

You can get books for $1 in a Shaimos truck outside Landau's synagogue on Avenue L and E 9th Street - between E 8 and E -- before Pesach.

This year I got almost a whole set of Shas with English translation (Soncino) for $15. I let someone buy a duplicate volume. He drove me home. One missing volume I already had -- two others I bought at Frankl's for $4.95 each

But now I misplaced the Megillah, Taanis Moed Katan etc volume.

The Index volume I bought some years ago at the Yeshiva University Book Sale (Soy Seforim) That cost around $20 - only a 20% discount. I also have the Minor Tractates. And a separate Pirkei Avos Rebbecca Bennett. Pirkei Avos is not in the Soncino. I also have mispalced that so am looking for another. I have numerous copies of single volumes of different kinds but this is my first full set of Shas. Well, except for the 1913 1 Volume Shaswith only Rashi. I boughht a very bad ciopy in 1985 at a Brooklyn College Lag B'Omer sale which i read about in the Jewish prewss. My shul also had some. Mr. Abramowitz the Shames then (approx 1987-1997) offerd me one but I didn't want to take it. I think it went to Shamess. But he found another and gave it to me. But both are now misplaced.

What I would like to know is where I can get cheap back issue magazine issues. There used to be a store in Manhattan. I am not sure it is still theer now. And Ebay and Half.com don't seem set up to deal with them. I guess they are too cheap for this to work - so they are totally unavailable!

By the way what happened to all teh CD-Roms libraries had in the 1990s?

Too funny!

No, it's not solely a Jewish-American thing to make sure everyone knows it's a bargain. The women in my family do so all the time. I think we just like everyone to know that in addition to having great taste, we're smart shoppers, too!

And, your wife does have you well-trained. How nice of you to compliment all your female friends on their accessories.

Joannah:

Great to hear from you and to have a solid back-up that it's not only Jewish American women who are bargain-hunters/taste-makers.

I imagine it's universal.

Here's an up-to-date conversation overheard in Saudi Arabia between two fashionable women wearing the Chador. Yes indeed, Seraphic Secret has sources everywhere!

Fatima: Nice Chador. Black suits you.
Leila: Thank you. Yours is nice too. Black is, uh, the new black.
Fatima: Thank you.
Leila: Curse the Jews.
Fatima: Curse the Christians.
Leila: That was fun, what shall we do for the rest of the day?

Robert, I'm off-topic again, but I just saw this on mentalblog, and it's so beautiful, I simply must share:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIUQXVkSecw&eurl=

And by the way, I got it free! (My nod to being on-topic.)

Kishke:

Somehow you being off-topic is always a refreshing and novel experience--something we at Seraphic Secret do not shrink from--within halachic parameters, natch. We'll take a look at the YouTube video and naturally, we are glad to hear that you managed to get it at such a good price.

I'm not into designer labels, but I'd like to meet these female friends of yours. Tell them that Pearl says, "I'll show you my bargains if you show me yours!"

When I was a kid in yeshiva, bargain-hunting was quite the thing. I still love a bargain, but who has time to shop?

I'm not sure which was funnier, the original post or the comments. Thanks for the laughs!

(And for the Leonard Cohen videos. Wow! Youtube rocks.)

Queen Malky:

Wasn't the Leonard Cohen video something special? It all comes together so beautifully; the melody, the images, the voice, the fabulous lyrics.

Pearl:

Not into designer labels? Well, come live in my neck of the woods for a week or two and we'll fix that!

P.S. Currently typing on a top-of-the-line Apple computer, wearing a solid gold Cartier Pasha, and a Picasso painting hangs over my desk for, ahem, something to glance at when I get bored.

Queen Malky:

Always happy to make you happy.

Robert -
Mata Hari sewing her own clothes? Not likely ;)

I'm with you and Irina on this one--I *hate* clothes shopping. I would happily continue to live in Land's End if only they would stop discontinuing all the clothes that a) I like b) fit me (it's not just that I'm getting fat, it's also that they sell almost nothing in a "full" skirt anymore, which is a problem for those whose of us hips are a size larger than our waists no matter how thin we are) c) match everything else that they sell (what's with the gray cardigans that are now too dark to wear with the navy skirts?). And LL Bean is second in line. So much for the Jewish American Princess stereotype.

Shira:

Here's what we do regarding the heinous habit of LL Bean and Land's End discontinuing the styles we like: purchase two of everything.