So I got around to taking my new suit trousers to be altered yesterday, however due to lack of cash, I have decided - potentially foolishly - to take them up myself. The Older And Wiser Ms Jones is going to help me - she has assured me it is an easy task - all I need is a few pins, an iron and her help and we'll be fine.
I shall report back on that next week once the deed is done.
Before taking the trousers in to the alteration lady, I tried them on again and started worrying that I'd get them there and she'd say something along the lines of "What are you worrying about fatty? - Those fit just fine". And in fact, I started to believe that one pair actually did fit fine and perhaps I was wasting my money, taking them to the alterers for a cursory three millimeter size-reduction.
I announced to her straight away when I arrived that I was not sure one of the pairs needed taking in (to ensure she didn't presume I had delusions of thin-ness). She instructed me to get myself into the curtained off area and get them on and she'd be the judge of that. Let me just describe the curtained off area for you. I walked in the door (the whole shop - including the door was glass fronted). On my right was a till area, to my left was a floor-to-ceiling, wall-length mirror. Behind the till area was a workshop area with lots of machines and ironing boards and swatches of material and two ladies sitting at sewing machines facing the wall - which was also a floor-to-ceiling, wall-length mirror. I can only presume this was once a hairdressers. Surely?
Anyway, the curtained-off "fitting room" area I was instructed to enter was on the right and to begin with, I didn't even notice it. Mostly because it was just a small rectangular section of wall with a makeshift fitting room constructed from a shower-rod, a pair of old curtains and a bit of string and a hook dangling from the ceiling. The curtains did not meet properly in the middle. Neither did they meet properly at either side of the wall-encasing mirror. Which meant that the ladies in the shop, and in fact, the whole world was able to get a good look at which pants I'd chosen to wear that morning and my wobbling bottom as I put the trousers on - via the gap between the curtains, the gap between the curtain and the mirror, and my reflection in the mirror if you were looking from the right angle (pretty much any angle would be the right angle).
And let's not forget - the "fitting room" is opposite the glass door - why they think showing potential customers the wobbling bottom of other customers might entice them into the shop to use the alteration services on offer, I do not know.
But anyway - and now we get to where this story is actually going - I come out of the fitting room in the trousers that I thought may not need taking in after all and the lady has a fiddle and a tug about at them and announces that they are far too big and needed significant taking in. Woo hoo! (Although she initially pulled them in quite a lot and I had to admit to her - much as I loathed to quash my feeling of actually not being such a lard bucket - that I thought she'd perhaps pulled them in too far as they seemed to be giving me a bit of a wedgie - much to the giggling amusement of the two ladies on the sewing machines).
And of course when I put the other pair on, which were definitely too big, I was once again showered with comments about how they were faaaar too large. To which I quickly felt the need to defend my purchasing decisions by informing her that they were the bargain of the century and therefore couldn't be past up despite their gappiness.
Just before leaving she commented to me that she hoped I had a hefty pair of heels to pair the trousers with, given the amount of spare material rattling about my ankels. To which I just laughed nervously and said I did. I couldn't quite bring myself to tell her that me and my sister were going to do a botch job on a pair of trousers she was just about to lovingly (and professionally) alter...
But I left the shop feeling rather smug all-in-all - and added another friendly shop keeper to my christmas card list.
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