Odyssey of the $6 Shirt

I love cotton. Cotton dresses, cotton shirts, cotton pants, cotton sweaters. Too often I go clothes shopping -- even at a store like Nordstroms -- and find mostly polyester or poly-blends. Target, on the other hand, tends to have a lot to offer in cotton. So I've started taking a spin through the clothes section whenever I stop in.

The one problem I see at Target is that the good stuff seems to go fast-- at least in my size. When I do find cute items in my size, there's often only one left. Like today.

I took my youngest to Target for PJs and modeling clay (I love one stop shopping!) and took my usual quick spin through the women's section. A simple black blouse caught my eye and it happened to be in my size. Yay!


Trouble was, there was no sales tag on it. We took a look around for another one with a tag, but there wasn't a single shirt like it in the rest of the store-- not even in another color or size. I almost put the shirt down and walked away, but I didn't feel like giving up quite that easily.

I went to the fitting room counter and asked the woman there for help. Nice woman, though frazzled by working at Target while looking for another corporate job. I had time to listen sympathetically while she radioed a manager, in between fielding calls for customer assistance. (I could see why she was frazzled!)

The manager came over with her fancy price gun, which I learned is the "PDA". It turns out there's a little tag with numbers underneath the clothing tag and they can use that to find the price when the sales tag is missing. Brilliant! Except this shirt wasn't listed in her database.

After trying several times, she said it was probably an online return that wasn't in their system. She said she'd sell it to me for $5.99. (Sweet!) But I had more shopping to do, so I'd have to find her up front when I was ready to check out.

I found the boy -- who had gone off to look at toys while I was dealing with the price check -- and we filled our cart. But at check-out time, the manager was no where to be found. (Of course!) For a second, I thought about ditching the shirt, but it was cute, and cotton, and $5.99!

So I found a sales associate and asked if he could radio the manager. He did, but she was conducting an interview in the back. (Grrr!) I explained to him about the shirt and told him that she said I could have it for $5.99, but that she was supposed to tell the cashier to ring it up at $5.99. (Yep, I said $5.99 several times, so we were clear on that.)

He hesitated and I thought he was going to send me off to someone else, but instead he led me up to customer service and related my story to the woman there. Luckily, she just said, "Okay, I can do that." (Yay!)

When I got home I found the shirt listed online -- $19.99. Woo Hoo! I saved $14! Which makes this shirt my new favorite, because the only thing I love more than cute and comfortable cotton clothing, is cute and comfortable cotton clothing that's massively on sale!