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Hawaii Not? On:2009-03-13 04:31:07

As my Father always used to say "Never allow yourself to be trapped by a woman in the Men's Department of a clothing store." Well actually he never did say that, but he should have done.
Repeatedly and forcefully.
My life would be so different if he had.

I once related how, several years ago, noticing that my clothes were about to dissolve into shreds of charges of vagrancy and court appearances for indecent exposure, I went shopping with Diana-No-Longer-at-Work; braving the crowds and the fears of that tenth Circle of Hell reserved for men---The Mall---to get some new white shirts and a couple of pairs of inconspicuous trousers and a pair of pairs of shoes.

Well, I survived that intact... just. But over time my clothing hasn't fared as well, and is again being all entropic and fragmentary---As I'm sure I remember W B Yeats saying on first seeing my wardrobe "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."
Ah! But now I have a Georgia and, last Sunday, she in turn had me, ...um... over to that tenth Circle of Hell reserved for men.

And so, with a mere two diversions to that eleventh Circle of Hell reserved for men, the Women's Shoe Department, she dragged me, hyperventilating and palpitating at the top of my lungs ...and heart..., to shop. I think that I did very nearly pass out in the dressing room in what she kept calling to my squirming distress "the pants area" (this since back home, in my mind, that ... word is reserved for underpants rather than trousers) and at her insistence that I try things on. I mean they have numbers on them, so why not believe them? Georgia of course dismissed all my pain as MSAD---Male Shopping Anxiety Disorder.

The trousers chosen were decent and quiet enough, but then came the Shirt Department! Wild'n'crazy ShirtThe shirts... the shirts... the shirts! They leave me feeling as if I look like I should be an Ugly American Tourist, on a package trip down the Rhine, or on a visit to the Gee-You'd-Think-They'd-Do-some-Repairs-Once-In-A-While sites of the Acropolis or Colosseum: or that I should be living in Hawaii---on the beach. They have (and I can hardly bring myself to reveal such an embarrassing admission) ... they have little STRIPES!!! Admittedly most of them are mostly white, but one of them is primarily blue! And Georgia ...Georgia said that I looked good in blue, and that's a pretty devastating thing for a guy to hear, particularly when he's surrounded by an overwhelming array of the bloody blue things, and no sign of the Store exit.
Not that sight of an exit would have helped. I am convinced that there is one of those conspiracy things between Woman and Department Store to have all the exits guarded by the Makeup and Ladies' Underwear Departments to make it harder for shopped-upon men to make a break for it.

And even when you do get time off for good behaviour, you are immediately dragged into Victoria's Not-so-Secret. The only secret being, as far as I could see, exactly what to do with one's eyes---look too much and the denizens of that jungle nudge and point "Purve" and "Dirty Old Man" amongst themselves or think that you're probably buying stuff in your own size; look too little and they think your not man enough ...or at all.

And then, when the whole sordid business is over, there's that not so subtle request to wear my, other and perfectly good, pair of jeans for squirrel killing and nothing else---and when you consider my recent history with squirrels, and the cactus-challenged state in which they have left my flat, you will realise how cruel women can be while the adrenaline is still running after a successful shop.

And you'll see too why I now feel that, just as soon as I get to work on Monday that I will be forced to threaten all my co-workers with a death as instant as is compatible with its painfulness, should they tease or even comment at my wild sartorial extravagance.

SisteersAnd the final horror: On that first and fatal morning, Bruce-the-PHP-Barbarian from two cubicles down had on the exact same trousers as me, only they were slightly older. Oh! And I couldn't get him to join me in a spirited rendition of "Caring, sharing, every little thing that we are wearing."

Cheerio for now
from
Richard Howland-Bolton





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