Trying It On

Shopping can be a dangerous past time.  We’d waited a respectful period before braving the Sales, reckoning that what we missed in deals, we made up for in the lack of bargain-hunting maniacs.  I tried the first day of the sales once, or it might have been storming the beaches at Omaha, I always get them mixed up, and it wasn’t pleasant: a cross between Australian Rules football and Rorke's Drift but with toasters.  Besides, I promised myself I’d never again be submerged under fat and flailing females after that ill-considered drinking game with the Women’s Rugby Team at College.

Today it was quiet.  Quieter.  The Serious Shoppers were at home nursing fractures while wearing eighty percent reduced pyjamas and making tea with Sensational Saving kettles.  It was time for us scavengers to pick over the carcass. 

T saw things she wasn’t looking for and wanted to try them on. Standing outside women’s fitting rooms is rather like walking on hot coals - few can do it comfortably.  I have very sensitive feet.  Sometimes I suspect stores use burning embers as underlay just to increase their sadistic pleasure.  Inevitably, my discomfort makes me look even more suspicious.  If it wasn’t bad enough that I’m clearly trying to peer through the cubicle curtains, they invariably place these booths next to the lingerie. It is particularly painful when, instead of popping out wearing each piece, T disappears for an age because the none of the garments warrant a public airing.    There’s only so much interest a lone man can show in thongs  before Security are called.  One can’t feign nonchalance by resting on a stand because, like Buckaroo, the hangers are wired to detect the finest disturbance.  One nervous male and ker-boing, thirteen pairs of smalls catapult through the air, landing with such a clatter you’d believe they had cymbals sewn into the hems.  And they are such tiny fiddly things that retrieving them from the floor always leaves my fingers entangled in some fiendish cat’s cradle which only the matronly assistant can unwind.  Tutting the whole time.

In the geological period that T was ensconced in her booth, another woman made three or four trips.  She wasn’t unattractive so to keep out of harm’s way, I started to read the washing label of the nearest matching bra and knickers.  Clearly unable to decide between a handful of blouses, she kept shuttling back and forth, emitting frustrated sighs after a few moments behind the curtain.  Eventually she came.  As she spoke, I thought I could hear the faint but familiar rumble of Impending Doom.  “Excuse me” she said “How do I look in this?”  Oh God. 

I wanted to say that she’s inadvertently picked up a child’s size but I bit my lip.  ‘Hmmm’ I started, when, with exquisite timing, T reappeared.

I was clearly looking at this girl’s top.  ‘Hello, Darling.  I was just looking at this girl’s top’ I said as way of explanation.

Comments

[Kate]

EEK! The sales. I haven't been yet. I was planning to go last week, but the bus drivers went on strike. I suspect it was a warning from above.

[Jon]

At last a perfectly legitimate reason for staring at womens top halves. We should go shopping more often.