One of the Girls
We (angharad and I) are in Buffalo to attend a friend's wedding on Saturday. Before then, we get to hang out with our friend and help her prepare for the Big Day. Part of that preparation happened yesterday: getting angharad some dress shoes, which was something that she considered necessary but not pleasant. I was offered to stay behind (and I certainly could have made good use of the time reading papers) but I wanted to get a white shirt as well, and so I tagged along. I was offered as well to be let loose to do my shirt-shopping on my own, but since I wanted angharad and our friend to help me with the shirt-shopping, I felt it only fair that I help them with the shoe-shopping.
So we all piled into our friend's fiancee's car and headed out to a humongous mall, with more clothing and shoe shops than probably the whole of Halifax. We started at a place called DSW [*], where to my vast surprise and amusement, I actually enjoyed the shoe-shopping. I was able to discern appropriate styles for the wedding and for angharad's tastes, and suggested a couple of specimens that almost would have worked, the best that we had found, and what we agreed would be good backups if we did not find better examples in other stores.
We wandered through a few of them, and in the department stores we also looked at the dress shirts. Amazingly, it was hard to find dressy white shirts that were also 100% cotton in some of the stores. We did finally locate some, at which point I announced that I had no idea what my size was. Fortunately, our friend, who works in theatrical costumery, had her measuring tape with her, and measured me up on the spot. We zeroed right in on the right size, but agreed that I should try it on anyway. So I grabbed the one that we had selected, along with another, slightly larger, example, and on my way over to the fitting room, I grabbed a much more expensive linen dress shirt. Our friend knew what she was doing, as the size that we had selected was a perfect fit; the linen shirt was not, which disappointed me, but kept us within budget.
We got pretzels and did more shoe-shopping, and I continued to be amazed at how much fun it was. At one point I observed that things were just wrong: here I was, the only member of the group with a Y chromosome (and a beard to prove it), and I kept trying to get the others to slow down and look at more shoes! Ultimately, though, it was angharad herself that found the perfect pair, and that roughly five minutes before the mall closed. Nevertheless, the next time people go out shoe shopping, I want to come along too!
[*] This is an abbreviation of "Discount Shoe Warehouse", but angharad pointed out that it is also an abbreviation for "Dick Sizing War", a sort of geeky pissing contest, like in the Monty Python sketch where each curmudgeon was trying to outdo the others about how hard their respective childhoods were. For some reason, I found it easier to remind myself what the initials were by the latter mnemonic.
So we all piled into our friend's fiancee's car and headed out to a humongous mall, with more clothing and shoe shops than probably the whole of Halifax. We started at a place called DSW [*], where to my vast surprise and amusement, I actually enjoyed the shoe-shopping. I was able to discern appropriate styles for the wedding and for angharad's tastes, and suggested a couple of specimens that almost would have worked, the best that we had found, and what we agreed would be good backups if we did not find better examples in other stores.
We wandered through a few of them, and in the department stores we also looked at the dress shirts. Amazingly, it was hard to find dressy white shirts that were also 100% cotton in some of the stores. We did finally locate some, at which point I announced that I had no idea what my size was. Fortunately, our friend, who works in theatrical costumery, had her measuring tape with her, and measured me up on the spot. We zeroed right in on the right size, but agreed that I should try it on anyway. So I grabbed the one that we had selected, along with another, slightly larger, example, and on my way over to the fitting room, I grabbed a much more expensive linen dress shirt. Our friend knew what she was doing, as the size that we had selected was a perfect fit; the linen shirt was not, which disappointed me, but kept us within budget.
We got pretzels and did more shoe-shopping, and I continued to be amazed at how much fun it was. At one point I observed that things were just wrong: here I was, the only member of the group with a Y chromosome (and a beard to prove it), and I kept trying to get the others to slow down and look at more shoes! Ultimately, though, it was angharad herself that found the perfect pair, and that roughly five minutes before the mall closed. Nevertheless, the next time people go out shoe shopping, I want to come along too!
[*] This is an abbreviation of "Discount Shoe Warehouse", but angharad pointed out that it is also an abbreviation for "Dick Sizing War", a sort of geeky pissing contest, like in the Monty Python sketch where each curmudgeon was trying to outdo the others about how hard their respective childhoods were. For some reason, I found it easier to remind myself what the initials were by the latter mnemonic.