I don’t typically get into conversations with strangers when we’re both about to take our pants off, but there was something about the vibe at the Marshalls on Leesburg Pike that invited sharing.
"Man, that is a nice suit," said the guy in front of me as we stood in line for a changing room.
“Isn’t it?” I said, lifting the hanger so he could see it better. It was electric blue, Italian wool, a bit sharkskinny in texture and Rat Packy in cut, but just tame enough to make me think it could become a viable addition to my wardrobe.
And it was ridiculously cheap: $160 for a two-piece suit. How come no one had told me about Marshalls before?
Of course, they had. My Lovely Wife and daughters are always going on about it: Marshalls this and Marshalls that.
But, never having been in one, I never understood exactly what Marshalls was. I’d always assumed it was a clothing store for plus-size women.
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And then my wife came home with a wheeled plastic cooler.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked.
“Marshalls,” she said.
Pine-scented candle?
Box of peanut brittle?
Sassy coffee mug?
Marshalls.
Apparently they also sell clothes.
A few weeks ago I followed Ruth into the Marshalls in Vienna, expecting to do what all long-suffering husbands do while their wives shop: mill about, kill time, avoid traversing the lingerie section.
Then I saw a pair of men’s striped jeans hanging on a rack. I’m a sucker for stripes, which, like a church’s soaring steeple, symbolize a yearning for heaven and God’s grace. Also, they’re slimming.
The thin stripes on this pair were white and light blue. The jeans looked like something you’d see on the singer in a Mexican rock band in a 1968 beach movie.
I felt the urge to possess them. Would they fit? These were 34s. But one man’s 34 is another man’s 32 — or 36. I thought it prudent to have several options before hitting the changing room.
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I'm accustomed to stores putting similar things together: all the dress pants here, all the casual pants there, different sizes of the same style side by side.
Marshalls upended that paradigm. When it came to clothes, everything was everywhere. This was the only pair of striped jeans on that particular unruly rack, but there were dozens of other racks stretching off into the distance, each one a veritable vine-choked jungle in need of careful exploration.
"Marshalls," my daughter Gwyneth later explained, "is like a thrift shop that sells new stuff. You'll never know what they'll have."
I never did find another pair of striped jeans, but I found plenty of other stuff during my brachiating ramble through the store.
My half dozen items — including that electric blue suit — paled in comparison to those of the guy in front of me in the changing room line. His shopping cart was heaped high. He was a Marshalls regular, and as we waited, he congratulated me on my selections and explained that particular Marshalls was a cut above all the others in the area.
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“It’s because it’s near Tysons Corner,” he said. Competition from the two upscale malls there — Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria — forces Marshalls to up its game, sending the best merchandise there.
I don’t know if that’s true. I called Marshalls later, but a spokeswoman declined to weigh in “for competitive reasons.” Still, I like thinking that in a world of retail uniformity, I’d found a gem.
I left the Marshalls on Leesburg Pike a happy man — even happier when a guy in the parking lot saw my purchases draped over my arm and said, “That’s a very cool suit.”
“You know,” My Lovely Wife said when we’d buckled ourselves in the car, “there’s a T.J. Maxx just down the road, if you wanna stop there...”
“T.J. Maxx?” I said. “Isn’t that a clothing store for plus-size women?”
Helping Hand
I know I just wrote about shopping, but this is the season when it's better to give than receive. If you're looking for a way to exercise that notion, I hope you'll consider the three Washington Post Helping Hand charity partners.
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In our annual fund drive, we're raising money for Bright Beginnings, a preschool that helps homeless kids and their parents; N Street Village, a shelter and support network for women experiencing homelessness; and So Others Might Eat, which offers meals and more to poverty-stricken Washingtonians.
To learn more, or make a donation, visit posthelpinghand.com. Our goal is raise $200,000 by Jan. 5. So far, we're about a quarter of the way there.
Twitter: @johnkelly
For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/people/john-kelly.
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