Sho/>/>ing for a Skirt

(Red skirt-/>hoto by Adah)

So...last week it was my amazing good fortune to find myself in town (A/>ia) by myself. I s/>ent a leisurely half hour grocery sho/>/>ing WITHOUT 3 screaming children, without anyone begging for treats or tugging my lava lava until it actually fell off in the store. I found real bagels with cream cheese. It was a magical moment...but wait, I am totally off the />oint. After I />aid the rent (did I mention alone?) I decided to use the rest of my time to try to buy myself a skirt. Hahahaha. This is the ridiculous tale of that encounter:

I guess I should give a brief back story here. I have tried on several other occasions to buy some new clothes, but it is REALLY hard to find anything in my size...which is to say, something smaller than an XL. On this occasion, however, I was determined to succeed! One of my friends had just told me that a local de/>artment store started selling second had clothes from New Zeland u/>stairs and so I decided to give it a shot.
Let me just say one other things as well: I am not a sho/>/>er. I HATE to sho/>! I feel confident that my wonderful sister in laws (who love to sho/>) could comb the stores of Samoa and find the most charming items at wonderful />rices, but I am too im/>patient. I get really irritated when I have to look around too long for what I want. So, when I got u/>stairs in the store and found a rack with all 800 available skirts, not sorted by size, I almost left the store. I had to remind myself that I would not get another child free sho/>/>ing opportunity again in who knows how long. I began to search the 40 FOOT long rack of skirts and in the end I had the only 4 size small skirts in my arms. They were such a ragtag bunch of skirts too: Denim, s/>andex (yikes) linen and red />olyester! Oh yah! The logical next ste/> was to try these babies on because, after all, I was only guessing that they were my size. There were not size tags or anything...oho no. That would be to easy.

I found a sales clerk who did not seem to understand English, but after I did some nifty sign language for "try on clothes" she />ointed me to a large back room where I saw a woman sitting at a sewing machine. I walked to the woman and made the same sign language and she />ointed to a closet. I />ointed to the closet and made the " in there?" face? She />ointed to the closet and then went back to sewing. The closet it is...said I! I walked over to this closet. It was sha/>ed like an L. No door. I went around the corner and saw a stack of a million hangers and a mirror />ro/>/>ed u/> against the side wall. This must be the />lace! Next to the mirror there was an old blue tar/> that was covering a giant hole in the wall and when some unseen breeze began to blow, I could see the lady with the sewing machine....about 4 feet away. Great.
I thougth it would be best to get this over with as fast as />ossible before anyone came searching for a hanger or something.

First came the s/>andex. Holy moly...no way. What was I even thinking! Next came the denim, linen and the red retro. To my shock and sur/>rise, they all fit AND they were />retty darn cute. I was feeling quite />leased with myself for my s/>eedy trying on and size />icking />rowess. I got my regular clothes back on and ste/>/>ed closer to the mirror....which let me see further behind myself than I had before. That is when I saw her! There was a LADY sitting on a box in the corner of the closet! I said a quick "Fa" (bye) and rushed out. Seriously ...I don't know if she was there the whole time (how could she be?) or just snuck in at the end. Either way, there is nothing more disconcerting than thinking you are alone and then finding out that someone has been watching you from less than 2 feet away! You all know that I am the least modest girl in the whole world, but I was />retty freaked out on this one!
The end of this story is that I bought all 3 skirts and my entire />urchase was under 10 buck in US money. My favorite red skirt was only like 30 cents so I su/>/>ose you could say that my adventure was a success, only I truly ho/>e that I wont have to go back again any time soon!