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Polis Report

The Fall of Emporium

By Ami Chen Mills

During the recent hysteria that Emporium was calling a going-out-of-business sale, my mother would call from Stanford Shopping Center like a correspondent from a war zone.

"They're going to 60 percent off!" she yelled one day over a buzzing pay phone. "Do you need anything? They have wool skirts!"

"I don't know," I mumbled from my cubicle. "I'm kind of busy."

"Hurry up! People are running to the doors! I've gotta go. Ahiee's waiting in line!"

Ahiee is Chinese for auntie. Between shuttling my aunties, grandfolks and cousins to and fro, mom was at Emporium every day for ten days, sometimes twice in one day.

Emporium didn't help. They declared one Friday the absolute, no-regrets last day. Two days later they were selling everything--including display shelves and mirrors--at 90 percent off.

Last weekend, they were selling lint collected from dressing room corners.

When I did succumb to one of these missions, I actually found myself consumed with the desire to buy a Turkish rug. It didn't matter that even with the markdown Turkish rugs were still hundreds of dollars beyond my budget--They were 70 percent off!

Hopefully, the damn store's closed, saving everyone worry and money. But last I heard, my mother had just returned from buying me a 4' x 6', rainbow-colored Turkish rug.

I have nowhere to put it, of course.

Still, she says, "It's you."

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