When the Shopping Gets Tough
There is one particular recurring and unavoidable
event in my life, which every time it comes round, has me thinking,
"I'll just leave it a bit longer. I'll do it next week." A week
later, I'm saying, "Maybe next week ..." I put it off, again and
again, until it becomes just impossible to delay any longer, and I'm
absolutely forced into going.
You're probably thinking that you can guess what
this thing is ... the dentist, right? No. You're wrong! I go to the
dentist for check-ups regularly, and learned long ago that delay in
that case only makes things much worse. No, what I have in mind is an
activity that is completely non-threatening, at least to normal
people, but which for some reason, just isn't my 'cup of tea' ...
buying clothes. My dislike of clothes shopping is really quite
strong, and I procrastinate endlessly before going. My jeans have to
have become tattered rags before I can bring myself to "get it over
with", and head down to the shops.
This aversion truly is intense. No sooner do I
step through the door into the shop, whether small local one or large
department store, than I can feel the sweating start. My hands get
clammy, and my eyes flicker here and there nervously. The sales
clerks probably think I'm about to rob the place! The sequence of
events is inevitably the same; I wander around until I find the pair
of jeans, or shirt, or whatever, that seems closest to what I'm
already wearing, and then try and figure out what size is suitable. I
can never remember whether my shirts are 'M' or 'L', or whether my
jeans are 28 waist or 30, it's always such a long time since I bought
the previous ones. But it doesn't make any difference even if I do
remember. For example, the sales clerk might foist an 'L' shirt on me
(in her mind 'gaijin' invariably equals 'L' size), but when I get
home and try it on, I find that I've bought a tent, not a shirt, and
for the next half a year or so, I have to wear this baggy floppy
thing. When next I go, I might remember this experience, and buy an
'M' size instead. But of course, this turns out to be much too tight,
and I burst the buttons. Don't misunderstand. It's not my body that
changes. My weight has been absolutely consistent ever since I was a
teenager, and it never goes up and down (although I must admit that I
have put a couple of kilos on my chest since I started daily swimming
a few years ago). It's the sizes that are inconsistent from maker to
maker, and from shop to shop.
As a result of this idiotic behaviour of mine, I
almost never have things to wear that I feel comfortable in, and
consequently grow to dislike clothes more and more. It's a vicious
cycle, only broken when I receive some article of clothing as a gift.
These are always things I would never, ever buy for myself, and thus
are inevitably the most tasteful, best-fitting clothes that I own. If
I ever meet you, and you think that my clothes look OK, you can be
assured that they were purchased for me by somebody else. If I look
like the more typical 'me', bedraggled and ill-fitted, then you know
I've been shopping for myself again ...
The contrast between my perverse behaviour, and my
daughters' attitude to clothes shopping, will thus come as no
surprise to you. They love it, and can never have enough new things
to wear. Of course, as sprouting youngsters, they do need a lot of
new clothes, and luckily for me, they are completely capable of
selecting well-fitted, suitable clothes for themselves (although it
does take rather a lot of time!). It is to my eternal relief that
they are not in the slightest bit interested in having me along when
they are shopping. As any parent of teens can attest, they only want
my wallet.
And now, as I write this, the perfect solution to
my little 'problem' comes to mind. I should ask my two daughters to
do my clothes shopping for me! They might not be so willing at first,
but if I were to bribe them a bit with the suggestion that they could
also pick up something for themselves at the same time ...
I think maybe I'll give it a try. They certainly
couldn't do any worse than I do for myself, and probably quite the
opposite. So, maybe next time we meet, beware! Perhaps I'll be quite
the fashionable young gentleman!