I spent most of last night sitting in a chair outside the womens dressing room of the new Nordstrom Rack in Westlake Mall. The new Rack opens Thursday, but I scored an invite to a pre-opening Tweetup. Nordstrom not only provided booze and snacks and first shot at decimating the inventory to all who attended, but also, a gift card.

“How much do you think the gift card is for,” my girlfriend asked.

“Oh, I dunno…five bucks?”

Um, it was for $50! Nordstrom really does it right. Can I tell you my Nordstrom story?

When I was in middle school, I bussed it downtown after school every day with my friends. And every day, we went to the main Nordstrom and checked our backpacks at the bag check. Now, the bag checkers knew we were as likely to buy something as sprout wings. But they cheerfully checked our bags every time. In stark contrast to The Sharper Image, which had a sign on the door saying you had to be 16 to get in. Guess what The Sharper Image? All those 15-year-olds grew up, and now you’re out of business! Suck it! But I digress.

Last night when we arrived there was a line out the door. The main entrance to the Rack is on the right (East) side of Westlake Mall as you face it. A small foyer–which will function as a bargain flower shop with “local flowers only for about $10,” I was told–empties onto a staircase that takes you down to the sales floor.

At the bottom of the staircase, men stood holding trays of cocktails. The crowd almost exclusively consisted of well-put-together women between 20 and 35. Some of them were wheeling around waist-high carts that I at first processed as strollers. In fact they were grocery carts full of clothes. Some credit cards were maxed out last night, I guarantee you.

I got to chatting with a few Rack employees during a brief foray into the men’s section. They were in high spirits. This new Rack, square-footage-wise, is the same size as the old Rack on the, uh, bustling corner of 2nd and Pine. But instead of being crammed onto three levels, the new Rack is all one floor on the bottom of Westlake. So, for the employees, no more huffing it up the stairs every time you need to talk to someone. There are other improvements. “We have real nice dressing rooms with doors now,” one salesperson gushed. The dressing rooms at the old Rack just had curtains. I noted that this is also a less seedy location, and the salesperson nodded. “We had one customer say ‘now every time I come to the Rack I won’t get asked to buy heroin.'”

I headed over to the shoe section–that’s what I usually buy at the Rack, shoes. For guys who just want your basic, somewhat-contemporary but not “what’s-in-this-season” shoe, the Rack is the place to go. I’m a size 11 and, instead of the maybe five-foot long display of shoes the old Rack had, the rack with 11s on it was in a 15-foot row that wrapped around to the other side. I bought a pair of Clarks. Cool thing about the new Rack–when you buy, you can do so from roving salespeople, just like you do at The Apple Store.

At this point my girlfriend had identified approximately 47 articles of clothing she wanted to try on, so I parked myself in a chair outside the women’s dressing room and followed the Husky basketball game on my phone. Every once in a while, one of the waiters bearing food on trays would swing by. “You look like you need a snack,” said one upon offering me a smoked salmon roll.

Finally, my girlfriend emerged, having picked out four tops and a pair of shoes. With the two gift cards added in, she only paid $40. And she said Tweeting was a waste of time!

The new Rack opens to non-Tweeters on Thursday, March 15, at 9 a.m.