Aveda has this gimmick where they send you a card when it's your birthday and you take the card into the store and they give you a free full-sized product; I'm pretty sure it's a massage oil, "Purefume" spray, shampoo or body lotion; custom-scented. There's no minimum purchase, so apparently you can just go in, get your free thing and walk out without spending a cent. Of course it's a marketing thing - they want to get you into the store around your birthday time, when you're most likely to spoil yourself by buying some stuff.
But what the heck, I use their refillable candles anyway and so I went to get my free birthday thing and some candles.
I was looking for my favorite person there; she's a redhead, very helpful and sweet but not in that psycho Stepford-wifey perky way, very pretty, and she has an unusual birthmark below her eye. It's black and kind of looks like the smudge football players wear on their cheeks under their eyes to cut down on glare or to look tough or whatever the reason is. The first time I saw her I thought it was interesting that she had a black eye, and wondered if she got it consentually through rough kinky sex, accidentally at a softball game, playing frisbee (I got half a black eye once when I caught a frisbee with my face) or what. But the next time I went to the Aveda store she still had the mark, so I assumed it's a birthmark.
She wasn't there. There was a dark-haired woman who explained to me that they are temporarily out of the custom blend ingredients but that she could give me a hand massage. I looked at my hands, told her I thought they looked pretty good and that I would take her up on that the NEXT time I came in WITH MY BIRTHDAY CARD.
She was nice. Then a man rushed up to me smiling big with his shiny teeth and offered me a tiny bottle of some Tourmaline serum and said, "BUT WE DO HAVE THIS GIFT FOR YOU TO THANK YOU FOT COMING BY!!!"
"Thanks," I said, startled by the effusive service.
(I mean, there was a time not too long ago when I was standing at the register with two bottles of product, two candles and my Visa ATM card dangling from my fingertips and was completely ignored by three staffers who were all helping the same lady. White lady. I'm not making racial accusations or anything. I'm just saying. So that time, I counted to five and then left, leaving the items on the counter. Why would I go back, you ask? Well, because I got the BIRTHDAY CARD in the mail, of course!
What a sucker.)
I go to pay for my candle refills (you buy a candle; it comes in a green glass holder. And when the candle burns down you can just buy a refill candle, which is packaged in recyclable paper, and you just pop it into the glass holder you already have. The first candle is $20 and the refills are only $10.50) and the man starts telling me about this Aveda rewards program - the more you spend, you get points, you redeem the points for gifts, blah blah. "Someone was telling me about it a few months ago," I told him, "But at the time, I hesitated, because she said it doesn't apply to purchases you make online, only in the stores, and I do order stuff online sometimes."
"Who said?" he asked.
"Ummm… she has red hair and … a mark below her eye," I said, making a gesture below my own eye.
Both Aveda people stared at me for a long, long silent moment, long enough for me to wonder whether that was offensive or shocking.
But then the man recovered and said, "Oh, yes… C. She's no longer here."
"Okay," I said.
"We pretty much have all new staff here," he said.
"Okay," I said.
Okay, they got me to join the rewards program for $10. In exchange, you get a small size Shampure shampoo, Shampure conditioner, Foot Relief cream and Hand Relief cream in a little cotton bag.
And Will said, "I can't believe you said she had a mark below her eye!"
Why not? I didn't think of the birthmark as a flaw, just as a distinguishing facial feature. Was that rude?
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