Shopping

 For some time, I've been in need of a couple new pairs of pants. Pants that I like, that is. Pants that are comfortable. Pants that actually fit me. The problem has just been with summoning the resolve to actually get off the seat of whichever pair of pants I happen to be wearing and venture out to the mall. 

Moreover, my girlfriend told me to wait till her next visit to Bali, not because she doubts my ability to select a proper pair of pants, but because I cannot by myself manage the feats of balance and dexterity required to both disrobe and re-robe while standing. So why not sit, you ask? Well, because the clothing stores here (or the ones I go to, anyway) have no seating in the dressing rooms--not a huge problem for functioning folks, but an insurmountable problem for me. For this reason, I do not try on clothing at all when I shop. Rather, I employ a combination of guesswork, estimation, hope, and blind faith, a strategy by which I have achieved thus far a perfect record of failure.  

Nonetheless, I decided the other day that I simply could not continue in my rags any longer. They must be replaced before they disintegrate. 

The Matahari clothing and etcetera store is nearby, convenient, relatively inexpensive. Those are the good points. Among the bad points is that the store employs roughly ten times as many employees as are needed. You will see them immediately upon entry, swimming up and down the aisles like sharks, monitoring any movement, sharp-eyed, stealthy, ready to strike. And where one draws blood, the others swarm. I keep my head down, eyes averted, I play dead, drifting with the disinterested current, ducking behind high stacks of clothing, but I am soon detected.

I tell the first young lady that I am just looking, and so of course she just shows me a number of things to look at. Pairs of pants, I mean. 

"These are thin fit. I don't want thin fit. I want regular fit." I say this and attempt to move on. 

"Ah, I show you regular, no problem. Right this way." 

And there it is. From that point on, I am done shopping. I am now being shopped for by a school of female employees. I have lost control. It is out of my hands. All that is needed from me is size. Pant size, I mean. 

I end up with jeans, 36 waist, length indeterminate. Color, blue. I am shown black as well, and gray, and beige, and I am shown underwear and socks and even cologne. It's on sale, you see? A promotion. 

Just as I am about to be sprayed, I break away and make a dash for the cashier's counter. Whew. Twenty percent off too! Promotion. Can you believe it? 

I arrive home with pants that are far too tight for me. I decide that I need to lose weight. 

I also decide that I should have listened to my girlfriend.