Clothes Alterations

OK, so I was at a local dry cleaner's shop to have some new-bought pants shortened.  There is the line to pick up or bring clothes to be dry-cleaned and there is a seperate desk for alterations.  I stand at the alterations desk a few minutes and people in the dry-cleaning line are staring.  

I get the message and ask a clerk if the line is for both.  It is.  Not anywhere else I've ever been, but it is here.    

So I leave the box at the alterations desk and stand in line politely.  8 people in line and giving or picking up dry-cleaning is not a fast operation.  *sigh*.  A guy enters the alterations area and paws at my box.  I run up and explain my request.  He tells me the price (which was fine), but I have to go stand in the line.  OK, I'm retired; no problem with some time.

15 minutes later, I get service.  The clerk says (about alterations) "well, you just should have said so".  ARGGHHH!  But she processes my order.  I'm a new customer (obviously, I wouldn't go there a 2nd time) and she needs information about me.  My phone number is a problem; it is not a smartphone and they want to text me when the alterations are complete.  I say "just call me" but that is apparently not part of their process.  She finally figures out how to make the computer tell them to "just call me".

I'm annoyed.  The alterations cost as much as the pants.  I'm used to that.  I'm not "normal" (family of short-legged people).  From the waist down, I should be 5' 2".  From the waist up, I should be 5' 10". So, I'm 5' 7".   I researched that once...  So my inseam is 25".  No one sells anything less than 30".  I'm used to that, but it still aggravates me.  😩

Why  was I having 8 pairs of pants to shorten, you ask?  Because sometimes I buy stuff and forget about them.  My favorite pants are "woodland camo".  I spent too many years wearing the standard men's office wear of beige pants and a medium blue shirt, navy blazer and tie.  So, being retired, I think "camo" is nice.  

And mine are so old and faded they just looked "smudgy greenish".   So I bought 4 new ones (even a blue camo and a desert camo!).  After they arrived, I discovered I had done the same thing a year ago, setting them in a box for alterations.  So I had 8 camo pants to get shortened.

I almost have to laugh at the (imagined) view of a professional tailor shortening blue camo pants to a 25" inseam.  "What is the Navy coming to, to have such weirdly-shaped people" he must wonder.  Well, my choice of clothes may be a bit weird, but it is my own.  I am retired and single; I don't have to answer to anyone.  And the cats don't care.  😄

They (the dry-cleaners, not the cats) will call me in about a week.

Which leads me to my next annoyance (closet-hangers), but that's the next post...