Two weeks ago, I added one more job to my already weirdly diverse resume: Manhattan Door-to-Door Peddler.
There is no easy way to begin this story. Buckle up, Kids, we’re going all the way back to 1986.
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I intended to go to Greece because I’d been obsessed with Greek mythology since second grade, when I checked out D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths.
I got my Greek pen pal, along with a yummy chocolate croissant, at a club meeting one month later. After everyone was matched with their pen pals, there was still one name left on the table.
True to my nature, I picked it up, rather than let it go in the trash. “You never know,” I laughed. “I might go to Oktoberfest.”
The Greek pen pal was a flake. We only wrote twice.
Four years later, however, Sandra Frank, my Munich pen pal, retrieved me, my friend Hayley, and our backpacks from the Munchen Hauptbahnhof, just in time for Oktoberfest.
And we’ve been family ever since. Her home was our first stop during this April’s European trip, Playdate 2013.
Like a lot of moms, Sandra has her own business, Pony-Pek Dirndlhut, hand-crafting hair accessories for the festival crowd in Bavaria.
The catalog pictures—some of which feature her!—are wholeheartedly, hilariously Bavarian camp.
But when I held these headbands, I didn’t see “Bavarian Beer Drinker.”
Sandra, seeing my excitement, asked me to take samples home and see what New York boutique retailers thought of her products.
I know literally nothing about the import-export business. In terms of retail, I only worked the register (oh my God, so poorly) at a print shop in 1991.
But, Sandra is my German sister, so I took the challenge—and a box of samples—across Europe and back home with us.
Then, that weird and wondrous thing called Life took over, and I let dust settle on the box for many months. So ashamed, I couldn’t bring myself to call her and admit that I was a flake.
This fall, both kids began attending school full-time. Suddenly, I rediscovered a thing so rare, I still put it in quotation marks: “Time To Myself.”
In Fact, It Was Time For a Field Trip to Manhattan (you thought we'd never go, didn't you?)
Armed with nothing more than a box of cuteness and some catalogs—and dressed exactly like a Westchester mom and nothing like the club kids I hoped to interest in Sandra’s handiwork—I jumped in the van at 9:00 am, heading south. I expected to have at least three hours to do my best door-to-door salesperson imitation.
Two hours of NYC weekday morning traffic left me seriously doubted the sanity of my plan.
At least I had a long time to admire a Keith Haring mural.
Sample box in tow, I decided that if I had to turn right around and go home to get the kids off the bus, I might as well eat some damned fine Ukrainian pierogi first.
Contrary to my expectations, though, the pierogi brought out the coward in me. Belly full, I wanted only to go home.
Walking out of Veselka’s, I slipped in to Dinosaur Hill, a toy store that I’d noticed but never before entered.
The older woman, scarf draped in a decidedly European fashion, shot back in a familiar clipped accent, “My God, is that Little Pony stuff back?”
I took a chance: “Ja, ja, ich weiß! Total Scheiße.…”
Doris from Darmstadt warmed up instantly. She appreciated my wares. We chatted for half an hour, and I took notes while she directed me to various stores in the area that would appreciate the funky cool that is Pony-Pek. More: I had my omen, and I girded my loins for battle.
For the next two hours, I shamelessly barged in to any shop that looked remotely interesting to club kids, flaunted the goodies, and left a catalog. Each place showed real interest in the headbands, and each kindly encouraged me to try this shop or that shop, too.
As it so often happens in life, my last stop was the best: Patricia Field.
It looks and smells exactly like my fond, 25-year-old memories of San Francisco’s very own Daljeets
The young red-head behind the counter was kind in a way that I’m sure I would not have been to a Lost Suburbanite when I was in The Scene.
Then she saw what was in the box and got genuinely excited. As she switched back and forth from the fuchsia headband to the orange clip-on, her colleague walked in. He wore calf-high, five-inch platform sneakers, two layers of torn fishnets, and skin-tight, black and hot pink leather short-shorts—which, I need to tell you, matched his lipstick perfectly.
Ta-DAAA! My dream market for Pony-Pek.
“Fresh! Unique! I love it!” He touched the feathers, turned her this way and that.
The red-head nodded emphatically. “I know!”
He, too, was so sweet when he learned more about my quest.
“I’ve just been raising kids for so many years that I am not sure what I can do to help my friend sell these….”
Deep sympathy in his eyes, for he had already taken in my Old Navy jeans and New Balance sneakers, he nodded: “Sooo, yesssss…you’ve been out of The Scene for a while…?”
I nodded, unable to voice the obvious truth: I was out of The Scene long before his parents met.
Copyright 2013, Tanya Monier
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