Secrets of a Secondhand Shopaholic

Well, I went to the Old Navy Secret $2.00 cami sale. If didn’t hear about it, click here for the information that I posted last week.

Here’s what happened – I came, I saw, I left – empty-handed:

Now, I’ll admit, the sale started on Friday, and I went on Saturday around 2 p.m.  So maybe all the good stuff had been picked up.  So I might be to blame here.

But I went with the expectation to snatch up some cute colorful camis for only $2 each…I had practiced the secret code phrase “Cami 4 me”, and I was ready to collect the loot…

I will give Old Navy this, though – they did well keeping it a secret.  When I arrived at the store, there was absolutely no signage referring to the $2 cami sale.  It truly was a secret.  That part was kind of exciting – I felt a little like the cat that ate the canary – walking around with knowledge of a sales that it seemed no one else knew about.  I glanced at what the other customers in line were holding and no one had bundles of cami’s in their arms like I suspected there would be.

Tee hee, I thought, and sing-songed to myself “I know something YOU don’t!”

So now I had to find out where the cute camis were hiding.
I saw lots of racks and tables with bright-colored camis, and of course they were all different styles – some of them had lace, some didn’t; some had v-necks like in the photo that advertised the sale, and some didn’t.

Now even a Pollyanna like me knew that not every single cami in the store was going to be on sale for $2.00. I knew it would be only select styles, so instead of guessing, I decided to go ask a sales clerk to help me locate them.

When I went up to the register, I looked knowingly into the young girl’s eyes, and asked quietly, “Where are the $2.00 camis located?”

It took a second for my question to register with her, but when it did, she literally squeaked with excitement, leaned her head over the counter, glanced slowly to her left, then to her right, apparently to make sure no one was listening, then whispered, “They’re over to my right, ” – (she moved her eyes to indicate which direction she was referring to) -  “on the table behind that sign that says ‘Back to School’”.

This really was a “secret sale”, I thought!  She’s really playing into this.  I glanced over to the area she was describing, and saw three tables full of bright-colored cami’s.  I whispered excitedly back to her, “All of those?”  This was going to be GREAT, I thought!

She shook her head, did a quick look around to make sure it was OK to leave her station for a second, then gestured me to follow her.  She led me around the corner of the sign, beaming the whole time because she was “the keeper of the secret” and pointed proudly at table that held the “special” cami’s.  Her excitement was contagious, and I nodded thankfully to her for helping me find this secret treasure…

Then I looked at the table and the excitement drained….

Navy, gray, white and black were the only colors on the table.  And as for available sizes, well, no surprise that there weren’t any available in my size.

Like I said, it was probably my fault that I hadn’t come a day earlier.  Perhaps on Friday at 10 a.m. this table was filled with bright colored camis.

But I did want to belt that sales clerk that acted all excited and got my hopes up.  Only to find these dull, and very cheap-looking  camis.

So I left disappointed.  And empty-handed

But, as typical with the way I am, there is a bright side to all of this!  In reality,  I really didn’t need to buy any more camis.  You see,  I’ve been picking them up at Goodwill all summer, and I’ve got a pretty good inventory already – camis from The Gap, Express, Fossil, The Limited, and yes, even Old Navy:

Now, they cost a whopping $2.29, and I had to wash them, of course, but in the end I’m alot happier with my variety and selection.  Maybe next year I’ll hit the Old Navy Secret $2.00 Cami sale earlier and get a better selection.

Even though the “treasure” wasn’t that great, the secrecy was alot of fun….