Monday 29th August
It was about a couple of minutes after eating lunch when a notification popped up on Rosie's phone. She said that it was from Price and Buckland (the store where I got my uniform from) and she was reminded that it was a 'click and collect', so we had to drive for forty-five minutes down to Price and Buckland and take home our order, but what I found strange was that we couldn't because some lady came out and said to us, "I'm very sorry, but ya can't take 'ome yer orders yet. We need to make sure everythin' fits first."
I wasn't very judgemental most of the time, but when I saw this lady, I thought, Oh no… She looked to be in her early forties, her hair was black and wiry, she wore a very dark foundation and heavy mascara, she had tattoos all the way up her arms and piercings dotted everywhere on her face. She also spoke with a Cockney accent and a lisp.
"Come inside." she said, beckoning. Me and my siblings looked at each other in disdain. Even Rosie looked a little disturbed. When we had entered the building, the lady came back with a few carrier bags with bundles of clothes in them. "'Ere's yer order, but ya gotta follow me to the changing rooms. Come on, sweeties."
Being called 'sweetie' by this lady didn't make her seem any nicer and approachable, instead, she just made us more creeped out. When she had given out our uniforms, she insisted we try them all on at once, but there was only one changing room for each gender, and when Lemmy rushed into the Boys', I felt like the odd one out, but I guess he was just as scared of this woman as I was. There was one positive to being in the changing room on my own; there wasn't a girl in the other room telling you to shut up trembling. I felt uncomfortable going back outside in my uniform because I looked pretty awkward. The next thing that happened made me wish that the ground would swallow me up.
"Oh, perfect, darlin'!" said the lady. "Just er…ya left yer fly open, love!" Then she pointed down to my pants.
I looked down and saw my shirt sticking out of my fly. What made me cringe was that she said it really loudly so everyone could hear and when I had tucked my shirt in and zipped up my fly, all the people were looking at me. I didn't know what to do, so I just smiled awkwardly then dashed back into the changing room. I stayed there for at least a couple of seconds sitting on the bench thinking, oh my god, what have I just been through? I might never come here again. How can anyone shop here? At that moment, there was a soft knock on the door, then I heard Rosie saying, "Erm, Larry, you forgot your-" but before she could say 'clothes', I opened the door, took my bag of clothes and shut myself in the changing room again.
Quite a while passed and I forgot that my phone was in Rosie's pocket, so I found a way of keeping myself occupied by looking in the mirror and counting how many moles there were on both my arms, including my hands as well, then multiplying that number by how many gases there were on the periodic table and I got the answer one hundred and thirty-two. Even though I felt embarrassed doing something so random, it was the best I could do…sadly. Next, to my relief, I heard Rosie whisper through the door, "Larry, you can come out now. The weird lady's gone."
I smiled. I thought it was really sweet that she knew how I was feeling and even she was affected by that woman's strange behaviour. I put my clothes back on as quickly as I could, checked in the mirror and went back out.
"That was so embarrassing!" I whispered through gritted teeth as we all walked out the store.
"I know, right?" Wendy said. "If she did that to me, I'd probably be dead right now!"
"That's not very fair." I said. "You're going to be wearing a skirt."
"There really was no need for her to make you cringe like that." Rosie said, shaking her head at me. "And I'm sorry I didn't do anything. Nothing like this has ever happened before and I didn't know what to do."
"It's okay." I replied. "I'm never coming back here again anyway."
It was another forty-five minutes back home and I sure was relieved when we walked in through the door. Finally, I was in my comfort zone. At least I didn't have to worry about my uniform anymore, but in future, I won't talk about clothes stores very often because it'll just remind me of 'the lady'. Hopefully, she'll get fired in the next few weeks and all the customers won't be afraid of walking inside the store because she'll be replaced with a woman who people will feel comfortable revealing themselves or styles to, no matter how awkward they'd look.