Mourning my Fallen Wall of Fabric

Sonia and I had a good laugh last night at my expense. I was telling her how I bought a skirt at K-mart on clearance and I loved it. It has all the natural colors in it, you know, browns, tans, creams, but it’s pretty thin material—don’t see the point in wearing a skirt if you cans see right through it! So I was going to get this $1/yd brown material and copy one of my slips and wear it under the skirt. I had already eyed this material so I knew what I was going to do when I bought the skirt. When I looked more closely at the material at work it ended up being nicer than what I thought (especially for $1/yd.!)

While Sonia was on her break I tried measuring from my waist to below my knee so I would know roughly how much material I needed to purchase. I came up with needing 27”. When I told Sonia this, she said, “Did you measure this out by yourself.” I said, “yes,” but I knew what she was getting at. It’s not accurate if you do it yourself. So she grabbed the tape measure and took a more accurate length measurement. She declared, “ok, Jessica, 22 inches.” :O “WHAT?!?! Twenty-two inches?!?! Are you sure? That’s all?!?! That’s it!?!?! I can’t believe it.” It wouldn’t have been so bad, but at the cutting table there’s a yard stick embedded on the counter, so I put my hands between the 1 and 22” marker, and when I saw how much material I needed I was shocked. I said, in a non-too quiet voice, “Ugh! I hate this, my legs are so stinkin’ short and stubby!” Up to this point, it had just been Sonia and I in our dept. (very slow night), but at that precise moment we had guests!

All of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I saw movement, and here a whole group of rather good-looking guys were walking right past our counter. I could have croaked right then and there! You know what the problem is, no, not my short legs, and not the fact that God gave me the gift of having a big mouth! No I blame the people who designed the remodeling of our store. This may confuse you, but let me explain. We use to have a wall of fabric that cut us off from the rest of the store. I loved that wall. It was my barrier from the rest of the world. Our neighboring dept. is the automotive and sporting dept. I think they put our 2 depts. side-by-side for reasoning of sales! You see, when a couple goes into a dept. meant primarily for only the guy and not the gal, the store isn’t gaining much; only the sale for whom the dept. is meant for. BUT, with a dept. right next door geared toward the opposite gender, they can step away, and now the store has engaged in yet another sale. The profit of sale for whom the original dept. was intended for, and the sale of the neighboring dept. for whom the bored partner wandered over to and spent money on something they probably didn’t need in the first place!

All that to say, during the remodeling of our store, like Babylon, my wall came a tumblin’ down!!  *sniff sniff* They shrunk my wall of fabric, and opened up a new aisle, so people shopping in automotive can come right over in the craft area. I mostly get people cutting through my dept. I don’t know, maybe they think they can get to the oil faster if they cut through the fabric aisle, (then there’s others that avoid walking through like it’s a plague or something!) but whatever the case, that’s exactly what this group of guys were doing—just cutting through. I didn’t take the time to count, but there were more than half a dozen. (who shops like that anyways?? That’s like a possy going out to capture a criminal!!) I’m pretty sure there’s no way they could have not heard me, but regardless, all night I tried to convince myself of the opposite. I told myself, guys don’t listen anyways right?! I mean, they were probably too much into their own issues to hear my comment—as loud as it may have been. And on, and on, and on……

It wouldn’t have been so bad, if they would have been creepy looking, or with girls, or a million other scenarios, but for once, for ONCE decent looking guys actually venture into my crafty dept. and I’m there yelling out something stupid! Ey-yi-yi

(And my parents wonder why I’m still single! Ha ha ha)

I have to say though, Sonia and I laughed so hard (after they were out of ear shot) we had tears coming out of our eyes. We needed that. Before that, our night had been so boring. ;P