Avon Lady

Remember the Avon Lady? She was kind of like Mary Poppins to me. She showed up at odd times bringing a fascinating array of esoteric stuff that you could only get through her. My Mom somehow knew her a little bit, though it was never clear how. Mom seemed to reckon her as a semi-salvific miracle worker.

A near cousin to the Avon Lady was the Tupperware Lady. She didn't come around as often, but there always seemed to be an entourage that came with her. When I got married, I discovered that my wife was on close terms with the Tupperware Lady and her friends. She didn't know the Avon Lady, but that Tupperware Lady almost became a live-in relative.

Seems like some generational mutation has occurred in the past 15 to 20 years. In that time I've been introduced to the Pampered Chef Lady, the Longaberger Basket Lady (she was my sister for a while), the DeMarle Lady (only heard of her, not yet met her), the Alouette Lady (only heard of her, too), the Creative Memories Lady, Mary Kay Lady, Lingerie Lady (my wife does not know this person, nor do I, nor do I expect to), Rubber Stamp Lady, and the most famous in our household, the Party Lite Candle Lady.

I think Tupperware Lady got moved to the mall, and Avon Lady got moved to a digest-sized catalog. It's a mystery how Lingerie Lady moved into the home party business. I don't even want to know. Something has changed, however, with the new crop of Ladies. They are very marketing savvy within the social networking environment. Group think helps the sales, and the products seem to fulfill the specialized wants of the targeted buyers. And it all gets accomplished in the context of shared hospitality experiences with friends and neighbors. It's all very slick and nice, but it's not the same.

I mourn the loss of the Avon Lady. She was the last of the honest peddlers. Yes, she brought her wares for sale. But she also brought news from distant neighbors and a sense of wonders from foreign lands. She was an ambassador and a confidante. She gave a woman a break in the middle of her day to sit and gab for an hour over coffee or tea with a globe-trotting friend. When she left, you always knew she would be back. And she'd bring her bag of miracles with her.