Well, this should be a real boost for A&F sales!

Many years ago, I bought a madras dress in Filene’s Basement. The purchase was not a colossal coup – no brand-name label, no tag from Neiman Marcus or Saks dangling from the sleeve.  But it was cheap – around $10 – and the colors were right – blues and purples. I thought it would make a decent wear-to-work-on-a-summer-Friday dress.

But the first time I put it on, I realize that it had one colossal flaw that I could not overcome: someone had already worn it.

Not that I have a problem with pre-worn clothing.

I grew up in the house of hand me downs.

With a sister two years older, they were inevitable. Throw in an aunt 6 years older and a cousin 9 years older and you get the picture.

Hand me downs fell into one of three categories: items that had been directly purchased for my sister, mostly by my mother. These were generally fine. Only occasionally would she give in to the cutesie thing of dress-a-like sisters, and when she did she varied up the color mix.

Category two included items of clothing purchased by my Chicago grandmother for “her girls”, which included my Aunt Kay, my sister Kathleen, my cousin Ellen and me. And, later on, my cousin Mary Pat. The girl sister-cousins who arrived later for the most part missed this sartorial boat.

My grandmother liked to see “her girls” dress alike, which meant that – assuming that with hems let down, a dress could be worn two years running. And something too large could be easily altered, as well.  Not all the Kay hand me downs came our way – most, no doubt, went to Ellen and Mary Pat out in Chicago. But some were sent on to Worcester, probably in the same cartons that Grandma used to ship us home-made pickles. 

So I stood to wear the same dress six years running – certainly excellent training for my grammar and high school years, when I wore a green jumper and white shirt every day.

The third category of hand me downs were from my cousin Barbara. The good news was that the clothing was lovely – from Bonwit Teller and Peck & Peck, stores in Boston where we never would have shopped. The bad news was that they were a decade out of date. That smart red spring coat from 1950? Still red, still springy, but not quite so smart in 1960, I’m afraid.

And that was just the pre-worn clothing of my childhood.

In adulthood, I have been known to do my Freegan version of the dumpster dive, raiding the clothing bags my sisters give me to pass on to St. Francis House, a local shelter I’m involved with.

But for all the pre-worn apparel I’ve donned over the the years, I couldn’t recall any that weren’t clean. And whoever’d worn that madras dress had excessively foul B.O.

Hadn’t she heard of Ban or Secret?

And what nerve!

Obviously, she’d worn the dress long enough to sweat up a storm in it – too long to have buyer’s remorse and decide to return it.

Oh, why hadn’t I noticed the rank odor before I went and bought the darned thing?

But, of course, it hadn’t been purchased on a leisurely shopping outing, but in a mad, after-work dash-in/dash-out. I must buy something! I’m here! I must buy anything! Now! Sometimes I liked to “browse the B”, as we referred to forays into Filene’s Basement. Other times, I just wanted to buy something.

I washed and ironed it, but never felt the same about that dress. Within a few weeks, it ended up in a St. Francis House bag.

I hadn’t thought about it in years.

Then I read in The Journal about a possible clothing store problem in NYC that is orders of magnitude worse than buying a ten-buck dress that smells.

Two Abercrombie & Fitch stores – a Hollister and an A&F – had to close last week because of bedbug infestation.

Not that I’d be buying anything there, but I’m quite sure that getting bitten alive is not the goal of A&F’s average teen customer – not to mention their mothers.

As most people are no doubt aware, bedbugs have been on the rise over the last decade or so. (It was, in fact, a Pink Slip topic just a few months back.) But most of what I’ve been reading about them has pertained to hotels, and private homes, not to clothing stores.  Even with the increase in bedbug outbreaks, few are prepared to deal with infestation an infestation.

Most commercial spaces don’t have a formal policy on how to handle a bedbug outbreak or complaints by an employee or by the public. Bedbug lawsuits are a growing area of practice for Marc Miner, a lawyer for Zalman & Schnurman in Manhattan…

I love that “bedbug lawsuits are a growing area of practice” bit. Talk about a niche. From a professional standpoint, is this something you want to get known for?

Let me try it on for a mo: “Creating strategic positioning documents for companies with products and services that solve bedbug infestations is a growing area of my product marketing business.”  Nah! It’s just not me.

But it is, perhaps, Mr. Miner, who’s taking this pretty darned seriously:

“In my experience there are very, very few places that have a protocol for bedbugs,” he said. “Often people come to us because they have a post traumatic reaction to it. For some people, the post traumatic stress is the worst part.”

Well, yes, I’m sure that having bedbugs is no fun. In fact, having gotten bitten on a night train in Spain during my rambling youth, I know first hand that bedbug bites itch and the thought of them is, in general, grotty.

But “post traumatic stress”.

Come now. Can we all join hands and foreswear using the term “post traumatic stress” for anything other than a) war; b) violent crime; c) terrorist attack; d) horrific accident; and e) natural disaster.

Bedbugs, indeed.

Nonetheless, bedbugs are a big enough deal, and I, for one, hope that the recent A&F infestations were aberrations. I hate the idea of having to follow the guidelines (“simple tips for consumers”) laid out by Missy Henriksen, vice president of public affairs for the National Pest Management Association, on what to do in stores:

• Be aware of any stains that seem unusual on clothing. The stains could be telltale blood spots left by feeding bed bugs.

Hmmmm. Wouldn’t any stain that you found on clothing in a store seem unusual to you – as in, you probably wouldn’t buy the merchandise? And, to the already long list of life’s little hassles, do I want to add inspecting clothing for “telltale blood spots.”

• Inspect clothing carefully before purchasing.

I guess I could have used this tip 30 years back when I bought that nasty dress.

• Check behind dressing room mirrors and any other crevices where bed bugs could hide — even wall sockets — before trying on clothing.

So much for the dash-in, dash-out purchase. Plus, I would think that, if there were security cameras in the dressing room, this would likely flag you as a potential shoplifter looking for security cameras. Might be easier to just travel with a can of Raid and do a bit of fumigating for yourself.

• Hang your clothes on hooks, rather than lay them across cushioned seats in dressing rooms or on the carpeted floor as these are safe and popular havens for bed bugs.

This is sure adding to the overall pleasurable shopping experience, isn’t it?

• Always inspect your shopping bags before bringing them into the house.

Right.

• Wash all of your new clothes in hot water and tumble dry on high heat prior to wearing for the first time.

But what if the tag says “Cold Water Wash Only”? What if it says “Tumble Dry on Low”? Is there any special anti-bedbug laundry detergent we can use? Or should we go ahead with the cold water wash, then re-examine the article of clothing with a magnifying glass, checking pockets and seams – no doubt safe and popular havens for bedbugs – and removing the critters with tweezers before smashing them with a mallet?

Maybe I’ll just make life easier for myself and stop buying clothing entirely. This will eliminate the possibility of post traumatic stress brought on by the sight of telltale bedbug blood.

As for the bags of clothing from my sisters, I believe I am 100% safe in their hands. (At least I have been up until now.)