Memories Unfold, Linking Gift-Wrap Duties to Building’s Downfall

I hope it wasn’t something I did, but they are tearing down the old Jack Rose building on Main Street in Ventura this week.

You see, I worked there one Christmas years ago, when it was the glossy Joseph Magnin women’s store.

And I’m afraid I discharged my duties in gift wrap rather sloppily. In fact, I almost got discharged that December while earning minimum wage of, the World Almanac reminds me, $1.25 per hour.

That same Christmas job would now be called a multi-task position involving a panoply of skills: operating the switchboard and mimeograph and making change, in addition to filling in at gift wrap during the lunch hour.

We did it all in spike heels, nylons and straight skirts, too.

Do I need to add that a job as gift-wrap girl at that kind of store during that kind of month was no small-potatoes position? I didn’t think so. It was long enough ago that no one raised an eyebrow at such terms as “office girl” or “change girl.’

It was also long enough ago that I made change upstairs in the office of the Rose building, then sent it whooshing back down through a pneumatic tube with a receipt and carbon copy to the sales girls on the main floor in a little gizmo that looked like the escape pod in “Air Force One.”

Thinking about that once-lovely building coming down, I’m trying to induce more nostalgia than I already feel for its loss, since nostalgia is my favorite emotion. And that store’s glamour was truly effecting to someone who considered Ship ‘n’ Shore a designer brand.

But a stronger emotion--embarrassment--overrides sentimentality. It was the first job I ever had that made me cry.

It was the lunch hour Dec. 22, and I was performing one of my panoply of skills at the gift-wrap counter. An expensive-looking man accompanied a clerk to the counter. She carefully handed over a sequined cocktail dress for wrapping.

The man looked pleased with his purchase.

I looked at the price tag.

Yikes. $110. Including tax, that dress was two weeks of my pay plus another Monday. I cagily surmised that that man earned more than I.

I turned to my wrapping chore. Those were the days when Magnin’s provided beautiful, and free, gift boxes with every purchase.

I had become particularly fond of the color and design of the scarf-size box.

I decided that whoever was getting this dress would like the box, too.

You’d be surprised how easily sequined fabric folds. I did some artful maneuvers with that dress, like I’d seen military guys do when folding the American flag. I placed it in the box, a darling little sequined stack with tricorn folds. I taped the lid down and handed the box over, feeling the gratification that comes with a task well done.

Was I ever surprised at noon Dec. 26 to see that expensive-looking man march up to the gift wrap counter with a sour look on his face.

It seems he had surprised his wife with the pretty little box on Dec. 24, one hour before they were to go to a fancy cocktail party.

When she lifted the dress from the box, it still held those military-precision tricorn folds.

I didn’t know this, but you can’t iron folds out of sequins, at least not on a Saturday night.

I forget what the man said, but not what I did. I burst into tears.

(Even now, I don’t think men get the “tears” thing with women. Usually, crying is just a reflex, sort of like saying, “Oh, shoot.” It’s the equivalent of men clenching their fists.)

But this time the tears were brought on by red-faced embarrassment.

I didn’t get fired that day, possibly because the job was only for two more days anyway.

I don’t remember how the dress problem was resolved--but if Magnin’s gave the man his money back, it might have been the beginning of the end--the first tiny chink in the concrete that’s coming down this week.