Adventures in clothing shopping (and a few other things)

I got so much done today it's unbelievable! I feel great. For the first time since Dave passed away, I feel like myself... and I don't feel guilty. I know he would have wanted me to be happy.

I decided that in preparation for seriously seeking teaching jobs, I ought to get myself some proper clothes. So I went down to the shopping center right on the edge of town.

First I stopped at Staples to fax my transcript request and make some copies of Disillusionment. I was going to make 25 copies, but I decided to splurge and make 50.

Staples' copy center is a LOT like Kinko's. A self-serve area where nothing seems to work, a couple of harried full-service people dealing with far too many clients, and no one (seemingly) on the floor to help self-service. The only difference is that you don't have to prepay... when you're done it prints out a report of how many copies you made, which you bring to the counter.

Anyway, so I found a machine and made a test copy. I glanced quickly through it and it looked fine.

I set the machine for 50 copies and went to send my fax. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to know that once you send a fax through, you can walk away and get the confirmation later. So the line moved extremely slowly because everybody hogged the machine until his or her confirmation went through. (At Kinko's we strongly discouraged people doing this. Now that I'm a customer, I understand why.) I sear this one lady was standing there for half an hour waiting for her confirmation...

When it was finally my turn, I did the same thing. I figured I'd waited, now the guy behind me could wait.

After I got my confirmation, my copies were still not done, so I went and got two boxes of envelopes (one regular sized, one large size, for manuscripts) and some pens, since I never seem to have one.

This is where things get good.

My machine ran out of paper. When I asked for more, a guy came onto the floor, opened another drawer in the same machine, and switched some of the paper stack over. He then told me, "It's working. It's just out of paper." (Thanks for the newsflash. I only worked in a copy shop for almost two years.)

Then, as I was putting separators in between my finished copies, I noticed a line running through page 2 of each copy! I was really disappointed in myself. I should have known better than to just take a cursory glance, given my experience at Kinko's, where this happened all the time. Knowing I should have checked more carefully, I felt obliged to pay for the copies anyway, even though I'm going to have to reprint page 2 at home every time I want to send one out.

Also, I think their machine is not calibrated right, because I made 50 15-page copies--or 750 pages--but the printout said I made 700 pages. I wasn't going to argue, though.

I was, however, honest in telling them that I used 50 sheets of blank green paper as separators and also that my fax was long distance. (It was a 909 number, but they automatically read it as 919, which is local.)

After I finally finished there, it was on to the clothing store. At first, this was a very frustrating experience. My size 16 pants are too big, but there was a very small selection of size 16 skirts--and they were all too small. I found one skirt I liked--a dark purple skirt that I couldn't find a top to. All their blouses were see-through or else they were that new style that looks like it needs to be ironed.

Finally, I came across an aisle marked "suits" I found a gorgeous blue two-piece skirt/jacket combo. It was a size 16. I tried it on and I looked beautiful.

But it was tight when I sat down. Not majorly tight. But tight enough that I knew I'd have to lose another 5 pounds to really be comfortable in it.

At first I put it back, thinking that it was a waste of money to buy things that are not the right size, and that I would come back when I'd lost some more weight. But I looked through the whole rack of suits, looking for another one in a bigger size, and it appeared that was the only one like it in the whole store. I was afraid that if I waited, someone else would buy it and I would lose out.

In the meantime, I saw this yellow suit that I loved. It was a light, pastel yellow jacket and a flowered skirt. I looked at the ticket, and it was a size 14.

I knew it wouldn't fit. It couldn't. It was smaller than the blue suit, and that was almost right.

But my eyes kept on going back to it.

Finally, I decided it wouldn't hurt to try it on, even though it couldn't possibly fit. So I took it into the dressing room, along with a size 16 black jacket/pants combo. My eyes looked over the return rack, and my blue suit was still there. So I decided to try it on again.

I tried on the yellow suit first. I put on the jacket, and it fit perfectly. When I went to put on the skirt, I realized the zipper was broken and could not be opened. I was about to put it back when, on impulse, I decided to see if I could pull the skirt on without opening the zipper.

It fit perfectly.

The size 16 black suit, on the other hand, was way too tight.

I still don't understand how I fit perfectly into something that's a size smaller than something too small for me, but I'm glad I tried it on even though it seemed pointless to do so. I decided to buy the blue suit as well. It should give me an incentive to keep losing weight.

Now it is about time for me to leave for my Toastmasters meeting. I'm looking forward to this, even though I'm tired from everything I did today. I might walk to campus, because I still don't know where I'm supposed to park (I don't have a parking permit). We'll see.

To be continued...