Lay-Away? What's That?
Sat., May 16, 02:00 PM
I saw some signs recently for the “ lay-away department.” Ha ha! I would bet that a lot of people, having grown up with credit cards, have no idea what that is. When I was a kid, however, just about every store — even the five-and-tens — advertised a “convenient lay-away plan.” Our family never did that. I saw the ads, but I never knew what they meant till I grew up.
So I shall try to explain, but I may get the details wrong. And there is a whole lot I don’t know. I think this is how lay-away worked. Let us say that you went into a store and saw something you wanted, but you didn’t have enough money. You would bring it to the lay-away desk and, for a small deposit, they would put the item aside with your name on it. You picked it up when you finished paying for it. I believe there was some kind of handling charge as well.
Details: I don’t know whether you got to pay in installments or if you had to pay the whole thing at once. I don’t know how much you lost if you changed your mind. (I believe you got back at least part of what you had paid.) I don’t know whether a lay-away item could be returned if it wasn’t satisfactory.
The main advantage to the buyer is obvious; he was able to buy something he would not have been able to afford otherwise. He was also assured that the item would still be there by the time he had paid. In the post-war days of merchandise shortages, there was always the possibility that the item would be gone when you came back unless you put down a deposit to ensure it.
There were a couple of advantages to the retailers as well. To begin with, lay-away plans would bring people into the store; sales were made that might never have been made otherwise. They charged a small amount to cover the handling, so if the customer changed his mind, they still had something to show for their trouble. They could even put the item on clearance without losing a lot of money. Certainly they didn’t have the risk of extending credit.
A woman I once knew told me that it was a ritual in her family. Every August they would all go to the stores to choose school clothes and put them on lay-away. They could choose just about anything they wanted. But, she said, they never actually redeemed them. I was appalled; their mother broke promises to children. I would rather say no than promise what I couldn’t deliver.
Now, I know this woman was prone to exaggeration, and maybe it didn’t always happen quite that way. But if, as an adult, she bent the truth, do you think she was just doing what her mother did? I could only hope that she didn’t make the same mistakes with her own child.
It occurred to me that, back when the stores weren’t overflowing with goods, as they are now, shopping was a chore. For my mother, shopping meant putting the baby in the carriage and walking downtown. I remember accompanying her on occasion, but if she didn’t expect to be too long, she could leave us older kids with Gramma. We were fairly well-behaved kids, but we still needee to have a grownup there.
Some days she went to the A&P to get fresh vegetables and maybe some canned goods. Every Thursday she went to the kosher butcher shop, as did all the other Jewish women in town, to buy whatever was available to make Sabbath dinner Friday night. But some days she just went to see what there was.
During World War II and for a while thereafter, there were shortages of just about everything. Housewives went to look, in the hope that something they needed would be available. When my mother got home, Gramma, who could no longer take long walks, would ask what she had seen. I remember one particular exchange, because I didn’t understand it for years.
“What was in the stores?” asked Gramma. “Stockings for fat women,” replied mother. “Well?” said Gramma. “I said it wrong,” said mother, “they were stockings for women with fat legs.” “Oh,” said Gramma, “never mind.”
My mother had chunky legs, but Gramma, my father’s mother, had shapely legs. Several of us, including me, inherited that. I also inherited monthly cramps and diabetes from Gramma; I was entitled to something good.
