As soon as Thanksgiving is over, the Beverly Hills bitches are out and about in full force and full maquillage. Driving their Beemers and Mercs with maniacal intent, they hit the department stores determined to put a dent in their hubbys’ credit cards. Black Friday is what the day after Thanksgiving is called, as all the retailers hold their breath and pray that the huge mass of Christmas shoppers will magically turn their red losses into black profits. This year was better than usual. The weather was good and so were the bargains. The queues outside the doors of the major stores looked like refugee camps, with shoppers putting up tents days in advance of this retail event. Some matrons even used pepper spray to fend off the crowds and clear a path to their prized stake, and many fights broke out, as they do when the prize is a hideous leather jacket reduced from $200 to $35. But mostly the Beverly Hills ladies behaved well and the stores were pleased.
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Walking swiftly through a major Beverly Hills department store, I was constantly accosted by the eager wide smile of sales assistants who oozed into my path with reptilian intent. ‘How are you today?’ they trilled as if they gave a damn. ‘I have the flu — highly contagious,’ I replied. Dodging sprays of ill-smelling scents that they wish to douse me with, I negotiated my way through the overcrowded cosmetics department. During recessions, lipstick sales surge.
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In the clogged roads, one of these ladies held a cigarette in her left fake-nailed hand and a cell phone in her right into which she was talking animatedly as she zoomed past us in the fast lane. ‘How can she drive?’ I asked Percy as he pulled up alongside.
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