PANT RANT
I like to run… really… when I’m not too tired… when I have the time; a size 13 or 14, I’m not that much out of shape, but I am out of clothes.
Realmans (clothes for the real woman) is my first stop, having provided me with last year’s closet.
“I can always find something there,” I catch myself telling no one in particular.
Still, after twenty years justifying my switch from Le Chapeau and Orienteen due to the fact that halter-tops and backless evening straps are a distant memory, I pine for a bra with anti-gravity cups.
Today, with a purse full of SneersClub certificates, I venture into… a sea of Easter-egg polyester with elastic waists, which sends me screaming to stores where I’ll have to use real money.
In other words, back to Realmans.
I play bumper cars with the racks for fifteen minutes or so and finally give up dragging their clothing in and out of the fat-mirror closet they call a change room. I make eye contact with a manikin and realize it lives. It approaches me.
I have to say it.
“Funny -- this size 13 in capris doesn't fit and I can't find the (shudder) size 15's.”
“Our capris go up to size 15.”
“I can’t find any -- funny.”
“Here let me help you… here we are,” the size two, fourteen-year old says cheerily, doing a Vanna White swipe across a rack load of pale beige flour sacks.
I try to smile.
“Not exactly the colour I had in mind.”
“Oh… well, let’s see,” she twitters, as she hummingbird flits through the store, barely landing and then circling back wearing an amazingly blank expression.
“Sorry…”
My eyes are burning now and I blink rapidly.
“Funny how this is new stock and the size fifteens are sold out already.”
She favours me with a blank look.
“-- and there are at least ten pairs of size five -- in every colour.”
Blank. Look.
“-- and the sales rack is full of threes, fives, sevens and nines.”
Blank…
Blank.
“Maybe you should carry more of the most popular size.”
Blank.
“Right… thanks.”
The nametag (Angie!) wakes from her unsatisfied customer-induced fugue -- most likely trained by the best.
“Yeah -- sorry.” Shrug, twenty-one gum salute.
That’s service.
I drag my sorry ass, bagless, to the entrance.
My heart jumps at Nametag's unexpected lilting tones directed at… me?
“Oh, Ma’am, (shudder) there’s this store called --- Chunky Chickwear 14+… just to the left on the next level.”
Wow, a store for my size, I don’t believe it. I practically float out into the mall and the next eight minutes are effortless -- dare I say, enjoyable? My heart fills with credit card-crunching expectation.
I notice the door to this store is larger than average but I refuse to let that put a crimp in my overspending garters.
Whoa, all the manikins are huge. Oops, she’s the clerk.
I avoid eye contact; fool me once.
I stand in awe of tall racks loaded with pretty colours and fancy fabrics; mountains of lace, pleather, and rows of humongous bras hung higher than I can reach… if I wanted to reach them…
…which I don’t.
It’s a real ego boost… nothing fits me; I’m too smallJ
I now shop at Wienners. It’s like a Salvation Army Outlet, but everything is clean; they have extra-large sizes and nobody tries to help you.
Shopping heaven, I have found you. May the Gods watch over you and make sure you never go into receivership. Amen.
YOU ARE READING
Oops -- my funny :)
HumorI'm a funny person, I can't help it -- funny strange or funny haha depends on who you ask. Anyway, my Dad was funny. At our house it was always dinner and a show. We'd ask Dad to tell us a joke on any subject -- anything. He always had one. I can't...
