I’m Not a Maven!

In Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall there is a scene where he and Diane Keaton are standing on line to get into Bergman’s Face to Face. Near them is a guy who is sharing his opinions with his friends, quoting liberally from Marshall McLuhan, in an attempt to add greater validity to his position.

With each pronouncement, Allen rolls his eyes… and finally at wit’s end, he steps aside and brings in Marshall McLuhan himself into the scene to refute this guy… “You have no idea about my theories, and you don’t know what you’re talking about…” Or words to that effect.

Somehow, in the sequence, Allen captured a form of justice prevailing… some know-it-all dip shit getting a proper come-upance. How often have we dreamed of this? A form of divine retribution, if you so believe.

You may think this only happens in books or movies… but I am here to tell you that I saw it happen — in real life. I was there, oh yes, I was there! Justice sustained!

It’s a story that involved my Father… and maybe I’ve told you the tale before… but since it’s close to Father’s Day, I thought it would be fun to re-visit it again.

Our family business was Chipp Inc. of New York (and today it still operates under the banner of Winston Tailors). Central to the business was Custom Tailoring… what our English cousins on Savile Row refer to as Bespoke Tailoring.

Our clothing was individually made to order based on a unique paper pattern specifically drafted for each of our customers. The drafting of the paper pattern, overseeing the making of the garment, and fitting the customer was the responsibility of our Head Designer. You see, while as a family we understood taste and clothing, no one in the family could sew or draw outside of a colouring book.

And at the time of this story, the person in command of our Tailoring Department was Charles Sferrazza.

The making of a suit was an involved process, and it would take several weeks and a number of fittings from start to finish to complete. From a business perspective, the fewer the fittings, the better. Each fitting past 2 or 3 began to seriously eat into our margin.

Enter into our story J.B. Whatever-His-Name-Was.

I don’t know who recommended him to us. But he ordered a number of suits from us over a three month period. It seemed that with each visit to fit clothes, he would give our salesman, Paul Jorgensen another order.

The trouble was that he was not taking delivery of any of his suits. And we were out quite a bit of money. Satisfying Mr. Whatever-His-Name-Was was proving to be an impossible task. And with each fitting, it looked like this guy was going to be more difficult to please.

My Father caught wind of this and wanted an explanation.

It seemed that when Mr. Whatever-His-Name-Was would come in, every other visit he would have his Wife in tow. On her visits she would bark instructions, “Stand up straight J.B.!” But the trouble was that standing up straight was not J.B.’s natural posture, and Charles could not fit the clothes properly to this guy’s natural posture (when she was not present) and staged posture (when she was).

More attempts were made to the same results. Almost right; but not good enough in the eyes of Mrs. You-Know-Who. It was making Charles sick, and he told my Father so. My Father said fine, waste no more time, it was stupid to throw good money after bad, he was going to sue this guy’s ass to get paid.

Charles thought the better of it… “You know Sid, let me take one more shot at making this guy happy.”

For the next fitting, my Father was on hand to observe the proceedings. Inside his breast pocket he had legal papers, as a “just in case”, serving Mr. J.B. Whatever-His-Name-Was for the cost of the suits (maybe seven in number).

He watched as Charles tried on each and every garment… listened as Mrs. Whatever-His-Name-Was chirped about this and about that. Finally, he lost all patience and called J.B. to the side…

Quite sternly he said, “Mr. Whatever-His-Name-Was, I am serving you with papers. I have been in the business of making people clothes for 30 years, and I am telling that those suits fit you. The trouble is Mr. So-And-So, that Mrs. So-And-So will not let you enjoy these clothes. She thinks she is a maven…”

Mrs. Etc., Etc on hearing this at a distance responded, “I am not a maven, I’m an Episcopalian!”

For those of you unfamiliar with the Yiddish term “maven”… it means expert. Originally this was a positive term. Over the years, however, the term acquired a secondary meaning, negative in feeling. It was applied to someone who thinks he (or she) is an expert.

But our story is not yet complete.

My Dad, having duly served J.B. Etc., Etc. with papers, took the seven suits to a Court of Law in New Jersey to fit Mr. You-Know-Who before a Judge. The Judge took careful note as each suit was tried on and when done the Judge turned to Mr. Whatever-His-Name-Was and pronounced, “My Father was a Tailor, I buy my clothes at Brooks Brothers… I know clothes. And I am telling you those suits fit you! Pay the man!” Justice served!

I think of this story from time to time. I just love it. I have to smile. I think of my Dad.

Thanks for sticking around.

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