Sale Is a Bargain When It Comes to Shopping Experience

I must have been the last person in Los Angeles to hear about the Broadway’s Final Inventory Clearance Sale.

Shopping is not my metier.

The historic transformation going on right now as the venerable Broadway chain gives way to Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s might have slipped my notice entirely had not a helpful colleague suggested that the frenzied bargain hunting would be worth a look.

The prices just dropped from 25% off to 40%, he said, raising the human comedy to its most exquisite pitch.

The very thought of bargain hunting at the Broadway brought forth a flood of memories.

I was but a grade-schooler at my mother’s elbow when I first descended into the bargain basement of the old downtown store at 4th and Broadway and saw grown women lurching and elbowing for items of apparel the way we boys fought over a football during recess.

Such childhood trauma can have important formative effects. In my case, one was lifetime avoidance of public spaces where merchandise is being sold for less than its everyday price.

*

When outfitting myself, I’m glad to pay a few extra dollars for a suitably subdued male environment and a skilled hand with the tailor’s chalk.

I wouldn’t know how to evaluate 40% off the regular price of a lady’s blouse, a bottle of Opium or even something as unisex as Mikasa crystal stemware.

I didn’t even know what questions to ask the other day as I walked into the Broadway at Sherman Oaks Fashion Square.

So I was not disappointed to see that the melee I expected was not happening.

*

A few shoppers milled about the perfume stands. Their motions were deliberate, if not contemplative. They weren’t grabbing just anything.

Much of the carnage was obviously already over. Parts of the second floor were empty except for long rows of racks stripped of their vestments.

A gaggle of unclothed mannequins huddled in one corner, circled by a ribbon of yellow police tape, giving the impression that they were being restrained from escape.

In housewares, another sight made no connection to any from my past. A male couple were on their hands and knees picking out designer bar glasses from a display.

At the cash register, they blushed with pride in recounting their successful strategy of waiting for the 40% reduction. True, another price slash might be coming up, one conceded, but 40% was better than anything they had seen before.

Next I headed for Broadway’s Tea Room, hoping to revive a pleasant old memory. I had been there once at least 20 years before, escorted by Donna Scheibe, a Times society writer.

With growing anticipation, I made a complete survey of bedding and home furnishings before facing up to the fact that the Tea Room was not there.

Stunned, I pieced the explanation together from threads of ancient memory: The Tea Room was in Bullock’s, across the way. And while confessing to a memory lapse, I should add that it’s since dawned on me that it was the May Co. bargain basement, not the Broadway, where I cringed as a child.

Down the escalator I went to women’s fashions on the second floor. I was drawn to a man about my age who stood gauntly beside a line of women who were waiting to pay for their purchases.

“Find any good bargains?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said uneasily.

“You’re waiting for your wife?”

He nodded. I eased away. The poor man was in too much pain to be confronted with notoriety.

On the ground floor I made one more try.

I approached a 60ish blond woman in a fur coat who was pecking at a handbag table.

“Finding any bargains?” I asked.

Either hard of hearing or too streetwise to fall for that line, she walked away brusquely.

“Oh, yes!” said a bright British voice from the other side of the table.

I looked into the young smile of Londoner Sophie Zoghbi, who told me of her unexpected good fortune in arriving for a week in Los Angeles during the Broadway sale.

She and her friend, Kirsten Wiltshire, had already done full days at the Beverly Center, Topanga Plaza, the Galleria and Northridge Fashion Center, not even blinking at the fact that the latter’s merchandise is not on sale.

Everything is so much cheaper than back home that it didn’t matter.

Their shopping spree left no time for Disneyland or Universal Studios, which they had seen on a previous visit.

“We decided to give them a miss this time,” Sophie said.

Having taken down all the information that my work required, I departed, feeling fortunate that I had not given the Broadway a miss.

Sometimes it takes a foreign perspective to see what we’ve been missing.

Much of the carnage obviously was over. Parts of the second floor were empty.