You say burgundy, I say wine

I recently went to J. Crew and tried on a lovely red sweater. It was on a Sunday. I went back on Tuesday to make my purchase.

Apparently when J. Crew gets a new shipment in, anything that was in the store prior to that vanishes. They had just gotten a new shipment of clothes in that morning and put them all out. Thus, no red sweater.

I searched thoroughly and then became frustrated and asked a salesgirl, where I could find the wine colored, merino wool sweaters that they had out on Sunday. She pulled the sleeve on her sweater and asked "Like the one I'm wearing?" I answered "No, these were merino v-neck sweaters." She responded "OK" and led me to a pile of the identical sweater she was wearing. A turtle-necked, sky blue, boucle sweater. I almost lost it. What kind of sales people, don't know their own merchandise let alone totally ignore the customer?

Apparently a more direct approach was needed. I led her to a table piled high with merino v-necks and said "Like these, but wine colored." She looked panicked and called to another saleman. He came over and asked how he could help. In that 2 seconds the girl had vanished completely. So I repeated my original question, and stated that were about 50 of them on this exact table 2 days earlier. When I finished asking about the wine colored sweaters, he said and I honestly, and truly quote "Red or white wine?"

I stared as if the man had grown 3 extra heads. Then turned to another table, picked up a wine colored shirt, held it up and said "Wine colored." The response, and once again I honestly and truly quote the man "OH! That's Burgundy"

It took full self control not to tell the man that Burgundy is a wine. And that not all wine comes in boxes labeled red and white. He went back to the stock room for 5 minutes, presumably to study his color chart, then returned to say that nope, they were all gone.

All this, is why I purchased my wine colored merino sweater from Lord & Taylor yesterday.