The fine line between consumer and voyeur

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I was over at the mall earlier in the week picking up something for the office during my lunch break and decided to take a quick look around for a new pair of sunglasses.  I haven't gone shopping for sunglasses in ages, but since I finally seem to have lost the pair I brought with me to Israel I figured 'what the heck'.

Most Israeli malls have between 5 and 35 stores dedicated exclusively to selling sunglasses.  I suppose this is because sunglasses are such an essential part of the Israeli wardrobe.  Anyhoo... I had maybe 15 minutes to kill so I picked one sunglass store at random and did a quick walk around to see if anything seemed likely. 

I've already expounded on Israeli 'tastes' in outdoor eye-wear so I won't belabor the point here.  Suffice it to say that I found nothing that I could imagine myself wearing in public.

As I was walking towards the door one of the pretty young store employees asked me if I needed help.  I told her that I hadn't found anything I liked and she helpfully mentioned that there were more styles in the front windows of the store.

I went out into the mall and walked back and forth looking into the store window.  After a couple of minutes of looking I actually spotted a pair that looked nice.

Two problems:

1.  I tend to like smaller sunglasses rather than the large wrap-around ones favored by most Israelis, and the pair that had caught my eye seemed to be a women's style.  I figured this out because they were perched on the sculpted face of a female mannequin.

2.  The pretty sunglass store employee had followed me out into the mall and was standing next to me ready to offer helpfully advice.  This wouldn't normally have been a problem, except that the pretty young girl cleared her throat and mentioned in an embarrassed tone that I was no longer looking at her store's merchandise.

Sure enough, I had unknowingly drifted a few feet to the left and was now standing in front of the neighboring store's display window.  In my defense, all of the mannequins in the window were wearing sunglasses... but I probably should have noticed that they weren't wearing much else.  I was looking longingly at a nifty pair of sunglasses poised on the face of a scantily clad lingerie mannequin. 

I probably wouldn't have been quite so embarrassed if:

a) ...the store employee hadn't been so young and pretty.
b) ...I hadn't been old enough to be her father.
c) ...I hadn't been wearing a kippah on my head.
d) ...the lingerie on the mannequin had been even somewhat tasteful.

This last point was probably what did me in. 

Israeli lingerie shops are not very um, subtle.  In the US there is a pretty broad spectrum of tastefulness in lingerie shops.  At one end of the spectrum are lace emporiums such as Victoria's Secret... and at the other end there are, er, less classy shops such as Frederick's of Hollywood. 

So I'm told, anyway. [ahem]

If one were to continue walking down the 'class spectrum' from V.S... passing F. of H. ... and then continue walking for, oh, about ten years, one would eventually arrive at the typical Israeli lingerie shop.

On the many occasions Zahava and I have gone to a mall with our kids I have been tempted to cover their eyes as we pass these lingerie shop windows.  The 'fashions' (if one can call them that) on display in these places are what I imagine a sex offender might dream up for hookers to wear.  Except, of course, that no self respecting hooker would ever wear this stuff!

Again... a supposition on my part. [ahem]

In the blink of an eye, by simply taking two or three steps - maybe 4 or 5 feet in all - in the wrong direction, I had gone from being a discerning consumer to being a creepy middle-aged voyeur.

So here I was standing next to a pretty young store clerk in a crowded mall, in front of an unbelievably graphic lingerie display... and blushing so deeply that I could feel myself starting to sweat. 

Under any other circumstances I probably would have just turned and made a run for it (and then never shown my face in that mall again).  But the kooky thing is that I really, really liked those sunglasses.

So, in an attempt to pretend that I hadn't made a really embarrassing mistake I said to the pretty young thing, "Oh, I know this isn't your store... but you see those (pointing directly at the sunglasses on the mannequin)... do you have any like that?

Not only did I not immediately appreciate how that sentence might sound if the girl happened to miss my hand gesture towards the sunglasses... but as if to confirm this, the pretty sunglass store employee asked icily, "We're still talking about sunglasses, right?"

That was all I could take. 

It may be that the sunglass store had the exact sunglasses I was looking for... and had maybe even supplied all the sunglasses to the lingerie store... [side point: who wears sunglasses with push-up bras and thongs???!!!]... but I'll never know.  At that point I looked blindly at my watch, did a fake double take and mumbled something about being late for an important meeting.

As I hurried away I felt as though every shopper in the mall had turned to watch the creepy guy in the yarmulke who had been leering at the hooker-wear in the store window.

I think I might just be able to manage for a little while longer without new sunglasses.