Grey's Journal:
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While I understood on an intellectual level this needed to be done, actually gathering the enthusiasm for the task was another matter. Zornitsa had long made it known to me that my clothing was unsatisfactory and, seeing as I would not do it myself, ultimately took the initiative. This is a reason I prefer living with women: no male flatmate would (or should) take me clothing shopping and comment on how my butt looks in different pants. Zornitsa knew a cheap shop with nice clothes near her place of work and decided that I would visit her there on her lunch break. The day came and, as usual, I prepared myself absurdly early for our meeting at twelve. Far earlier than necessary I was ready to leave, except there was one problem: I couldn't find my glasses. This is a regular occurrence in my life and something I schedule time for. I did a sweep of the usual places (dresser, night stand, bathroom sink), the less-likely places (shirt pockets, backpack) and when these failed, the tremendously unlikely places (refrigerator, food cabinets). Once, a long time ago, I actually did find my glasses in the refrigerator folded neatly on the top shelf next to the milk. How they got there, I don't know, but I choose to blame my housemate at the time rather than accept responsibility for my own actions. My current search still turned up nothing. When looking for glasses, it is immensely frustrating to know that the one thing that would help most in the search would be the glasses themselves. It's like looking for a flashlight in a dark basement. I re-did the search but still nothing. Time began to run short and I knew a decision needed to be made: leave late or leave blind. Late? Blind? Late? Blind? Realizing that blind would make me more late, I resumed the hunt for my glasses. Just when I was about to give up, I saw the culprit: The Sheep.  Photograph of The Sheep (who is clearly a ram) by ZornitsaZornitsa and I visited Stonehenge on her birthday and, in the gift shop, we bought an adorable little stuffed sheep, because I was more captivated by the sheep surrounding Stonehenge than Stonehenge itself. The Sheep sits on a table in the corner of the room that I use to store my laptop. Now, The Sheep was trying to look innocent, but I knew it had my glasses. I checked under the table and didn't see anything, but when I ran my hand along the wires I felt my glasses. The Sheep's story is that when I pushed it back to make room for my computer in the morning, I knocked the glasses off myself. But, I know better. The tricky sheep took the opportunity to push my glasses off. Either way, glasses now on my face, I ran out the house, up the hill and jumped onto the train just as the doors closed. I sent a text message to Zornitsa: Sorry, I missed my intended
train, but I caught the second one. I may be a little late.Her reply came in: ha! grey missed a train? very funny.
you are always on time. don't forget 2 change at the crystal
palace.My stomach sank. Crystal Palace? I was on the train to London Bridge, in my hurry I went to my usual north-bound platform instead of the south-bound platform I needed. I decided not to inform Zornitsa of this and instead recalculated my route. At London Bridge I could switch to the Northern Line and still get where I needed to be. On my way out of the London Bridge station I discovered, with dismay, that my ticket wasn't working at the gates, so I had to get one of the underground staff to let me through. This is becoming something of a habit in my life. Four tickets in the space of two weeks died between the time I bought them and when I next took them out of my pocket. Looking for someone to blame, I realized my tickets began to fail around the time The Sheep came home. The only logical answer was that The Sheep, trickster that it is, stitched magnetized iron filings into my pants to invalidate my tickets. I made it to Zornitsa's station thirty minutes late, a treasonable offense in my book and doubly so as I was wasting her time off from work. I went to pass though the open underground gate, holding up my ticket for inspection. The underground staff rarely glance at it, but this time the guy stopped me. ``Whoa, son.'' He was an old, black man and took my ticket, holding it in front of himself and extending his arm the way the elderly do until it came into focus. He examined my card for a long time, looking at what I'll never know. The ticket is just a pink slip of paper with the zone numbers and date printed on it: no photograph to compare or signature to scrutinize. I was not prepared to wait, and it showed. The man regarded my twitchy demeanor. ``Slow down, son,'' he said in an old-man-river voice. ``Ain't no reason to hurry.'' I had 1,800 late seconds of reason to worry. While Zornitsa waited outside the station, this man decided for me that there was no reason to hurry. I wanted to smite him dead for delaying me and gave him a look to make that clear. He held my ticket for one second longer before returning it to me. I ran up the stairs to the street level to find Zornitsa, but she wasn't there. The station had another exit on the diagonal street corner, so I ran back down the stairs -- past the guard -- and up the opposite stairs. No Zornitsa. Did I miss her on the other side? Down and up again. No, definitely no Zornitsa here. Let me check the other side one more time. Down and up. She wasn't anywhere. I assumed that she waited for me over her whole lunch hour and returned to work without eating anything and would hate me forever. I felt twice as badly because this was something nice she was trying to do for me that she didn't have to. I sat on the street corner and wrote her a long text message apologizing for wasting her time. Moments later, she replied explaining that I was at the wrong station. Whoops. I had done the same thing about a month before when trying to get to Marine's birthday party in Clapham and I didn't check until too late which of the five Claphams (Clapham Junction, Clapham High Street, Clapham North, Clapham Common, and Clapham South -- all unknown to me) it was. I raced down back into the underground, past the guard who, fortunately for the both of us, didn't check my ticket again and jumped on the train. When I found Zornitsa at the right station, I all but got down on my knees and begged her to forgive me. ``Calm down. Don't worry. All your apologizing and texts are funny. Now let's go to the store.'' *
* *
In the store Zornitsa asked me uncomfortable questions. ``What's your shirt size?'' ``I don't know.'' ``What's your pant size?'' ``I don't know.'' ``Underwear size?'' ``I don't know.'' ``Grey! How do you not know these things!?'' I have no excuses to offer. Once, solely with the intention of annoying a chemistry major friend of mine, Jill, I memorized the periodic table. So, the capacity to remember numbers resides within my mind, but the desire to apply that to practical information is sometimes lacking. I shrugged my shoulders. Zornitsa made a despairing sigh and lead me through the store, holding clothes up to my body and frowning thoughtfully. But, as I had wasted most of her lunch time, she left quickly and I was stranded in the store with a head full of advice and no idea what to do next. Because I didn't know my shirt size, Zornitsa had limited her suggestions to colors and styles before leaving. I needed to determine my size on my own. I tried to grab a range of sizes from the racks, but small, everyday tasks like this can often overwhelm me. I loaded up an armful of shirts as best I could and, not knowing what else to do, got on line for the dressing room. When my turn came, the woman guarding the entrance said shortly to me, ``Six items only.'' I dumped my clothes on the table -- easily twenty or thirty items for the purpose of determining my size -- and motioned for the woman behind me to go ahead, as it would take me some time for me to sort through everything. ``Oh no you don't,'' said the changing room lady. ``She'll wait.'' Now, she and the ten other women on line were waiting for me. I couldn't take the pressure so I just grabbed the first six items. Inside the changing booth, I realized that the shirts I brought in were the kind wrapped in plastic and I wasn't sure if I was allowed to take them out of the packaging to try them on. I remember getting yelled at once in VanHusen for trying on their wrapped shirts. But, the changing room lady did see me pick these shirts and she let me pass. I opened the package and started pulling out the dozens of pins that held the shirt in place, while trying to remember where each went so I could put them back after I tried on the shirt. Halfway through the endeavor, I realized it was an impossible task and hoped that the shirt would be the right size so I wouldn't have to open many more. The shirt loosened, but now, to my horror, I found plastic alligator clips holding the folds in place. There was no way I was going to get the shirt back in its wrapping. I toyed with the idea of leaving the shirt in the changing room if it didn't fit, but then I remembered the big plastic `6' the changing room lady gave me. If I walked out with only five items, she would get the security guard to arrest me for shoplifting. That was it: I had to buy the shirt if it fit or not. I pulled the cardboard backing out, tried on the shirt and, much to my relief, it fit. I stuffed the shirt back in the bag as best I could and left a huge, guilty pile of pins and alligator clips on the bench. Overwhelmed by trying on a single shirt and having taken up so much time that the changing room lady was doubtlessly wondering what I was doing, I left the room. Then, grabbing shirts in the colors Zornitsa recommended and that matched the size of the shirt I tried on, I paid for it all and got out of the store as fast as I could, never to go shopping again until another female friend makes me. |
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Copyright © 2004 Wellington Grey  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. |
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