I was poking around the mall over lunch hour today, thinking of places to go to find a dressy pair of dark jeans - something that I can get away with wearing to work without looking like I'm wearing jeans. I am, coincidentally as you will see, wearing my most hated and unflattering pants. I also realize when contemplating which stores to visit that I am steering clear of Banana Republic. Now that I thought about it, I had been doing this the last few times I had been to the mall and today it dawned on me why.
About a month ago, I was feeling particularly frumpy. On that particular day, I was rocking the same pair of frumpy pants that, to be fair, only looked that way because I had lost some weight. Definitely not a bad problem to have, however, frumpy is frumpy and you cannot feel your best knowing that you look like you borrowed your granny's slacks. On that day, I decided to go to Banana Republic and check out their lovely, pretty things. They have a knack for parting me with my money and felt that this visit would be no different.
Now, being petite, I should also say that there are few stores that have clothes that fit proportionately well for short people. BR is one of the few so I was happy to spot a few options as I walked in. What I was not happy to find was the sales associate. She was obviously trained to help customers by finding the correct fit for their body type, however, I am sure there are no customers who would have appreciated her approach to accomplishing this task. Keeping in mind that I was already feeling dumpy in my frumpy-frump pants, she asks me to open my coat to 'see my shape'. I've never been ask this request, at least not before 9 pm and definitely not in such a well-lit locale. Taken aback, I slowly and obediently opened my coat to reveal 'my shape'. I've never felt so exposed! It was awful. I was in there because I already felt crappy, the last thing I wanted was to have someone scrutinizing my appearance. Ugh. Just give me the damn pants, woman!
Little Miss Helpful selected not only the cut and fit she thought best, but also provided her best guess at my size - yet another blow. As I said, the reason I was in here was because my pants were too big (yay), yet she was not asking my size but rather, sizing me up (boo)!
Needless to say, I left without buying anything, and until today, didn't realize that I had been avoiding going back there, lest I be 'examined' again. Humourous in retrospect for sure, the experience reinforces my rule that one should dress up just a tad when heading out for new threads so you feel pretty good about yourself before undoubtedly sporting some hellish wardrobe selections. Or we should at leat be prepared tell such helpful sales people to beat it!
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