Today I went shopping with my husband. This is a once a decade event that makes him very agitated. He believes if we want to wear something we should grow it, kill it in the wild or purchase it from a charity shop. According to him shopping centres are dens of capitalist iniquity.
He was forced to be a mall male because every pair of boil in the bag M&S work trousers that I have brought home to him recently haven’t fitted properly. I don’t know what’s going on because he hasn’t changed height or width. He’s convinced it’s a top secret retail ploy – alter all the sizes to force the fellas into the shops to try on and then they will buy more. Aka the credit crunch conspiracy.
He warned me that he is only going to try on one pair – he takes this solemn vow on the car park ramp before we can even see a shop. “In and Out” he kept muttering to himself, breathing in deep through his nose and slow out of the mouth. He took a pair into M&S changing rooms, and when he stepped out it brought to mind the expression ‘ the things you see when you haven’t got a gun’. The grey trousers seized his buttocks, and gave him a giant camel’s foot at the front. His meat and two veg had been shunted close to his navel and they were so short that Norman Wisdom would have loved them.
But what did my lifelong shop-refuser say after a long hard look in the full length mirror ? “These are fine. Now let’s get out of here.” That comment made the fitting room assistant lean her head on my shoulder and laugh along with me until her supervisor came over and told her to go for a break. Gauging what size he would take according to the grip of the pair he tried on I had bought and paid for enough new trousers for a couple of years ahead by the time he emerged from the fitting rooms.
I promised him all sorts of (private) exciting things if he would come with me to try on glasses frames. It was en route to the car which is why he agreed. Guess what the frames I selected were like from his comments, ” Joe 90″, “Too Lorraine from the Apprentice, you know, the swinger”, “Dame Edna”, “Ooooold” , “Mutton dressed as lamb”, “Too flashy”, “Would you wear those to Mass? “”HOW MUCH?” and finally the one that sent me back to the car ready to kill him - ”Has your face got bigger or something?”
“Has your face got bigger?”!!!???? Does this man value his meat and two veg??!!