It didn’t look like they made any “minor adjustments” this time, but that’s probably for the best.
I went back and looked at the original post for Episode 3 and discovered that I never explained why shopping for clothes was “a traumatizing experience.” Sure, I got to spend plenty of time second-guessing my lack of fashion sense, but it goes a little deeper than that.
First off, I’d like to thank the personal shoppers there who were either close to the same size as Scarlet or really good at interpreting my guesstimates (”about your height, very petite, etc.”). If it weren’t for them… well, that wouldn’t have been me saying “Wow” up on the stage. Truthfully, the problems didn’t start until we hit the second store for casual and evening wear.
When we walked into the place that had bikinis covering the walls, I had a fairly simple idea of what I wanted: something that emphasized Scarlet’s neck, mostly because the one she already had wrapped around her body with a little strap looping up around the back of her neck. I guess there were plenty that had the single strap like that, but I was choosing between two—the black one that I picked out and one that had a slightly smaller cut for the bottom. And it was metallic silver. It hurt my eyes just thinking about Scarlet wearing that, so I stuck to basic black.
In retrospect, I’m not sure why I narrowed it down to those two—maybe it was because the person helping me figured out size 1 (which was Scarlet’s actual size) and those were the only available ones, I dunno… Regardless, it looked good, so I ain’t complaining. Speaking of looking good, I have something to say: the word “sexy” coming out of my mouth sounded very alien. “Arousal factor” was kinda goofy and somewhat embarrassing, but “sexy”? The mind reels…
But then we went on to pick out the other two outfits and everything hit the fan. There weren’t enough personal shoppers in the store to help each of us individually, so those other bastards hoarded the women while I wandered around on my own for most of the time. Incidentally, I had looked at the dress that Bill and Richard had picked out, but thought the bright gold star in the middle looked a little too gaudy for my tastes—the shine and glistening rubbed me the wrong way. (There wasn’t that “arousal factor”…)
During the few minutes that I managed to grab some help, you saw the clip of me talking about the choker on Scarlet’s dress and the personal shopper pointed me to the only dress style with that kind of neck. It was full-length, down to the floor. Nuh-uh. So I found that long lime green (I think) t-shirt right away—it was the same color as her swimsuit and a sweater she’d worn—and roamed the store grounds without a clue as to what I was doing. I’d walk, look at a dress on the rack, not like it, put it back, keep walking, look at a dress and put it back… it never seemed to end. Until it was almost time to end.
They gave us a five minute warning (can’t have us lingering in the store all night…), at which point I had the t-shirt. That was it. Just the t-shirt. That’s when I started to panic. “What happens if I don’t find something in time? She won’t have to go out there naked, so what’s gonna happen to us? Shit!!” I ran back to the counter, swiped the girl who’d been helping out Chuck and we went on a mad spree to pick out what I needed. We headed to the wall closest to us and found a couple black dresses—I don’t think I’d seen them before then, which shows you how observant I am when it comes to finding stylish clothes on the rack. The second dress she held up looked pretty good, so that’s the one I chose. Much like the bathing suit place, I compared her height and proportions to Scarlet’s and the shopper picked the size (it was a size 2 instead of a 1, but it still fit her and made her look really… I’m not gonna use the s-word again if I can help it).
We then ran over to the shelves of jeans—I knew I’d be getting a pair, but hadn’t the slightest idea what the right size might have been, nor had I thought about all the potential styles of jeans. Thankfully, the personal shopper came through once again. I brought all that back to the counter, she started ringing that up and I grabbed some dangly earrings next to the register right before time was up. I hadn’t the slightest idea how any of it would look, but at least Scarlet had something to wear.
But there was still something nagging at me. Like I’ve said a multitude of times in here, I haven’t the slightest idea how sizes work. I’d been a little concerned after choosing the bathing suits that it’d be too small for Scarlet. Obviously, it wasn’t a problem. What was a problem was that the first dress style that a personal shopper had pointed out for me had a size 4 and a size 6. Somehow, that number 4 got stuck in my head. Up to the point when I was showing Scarlet the outfits I’d chosen, I would have sworn on my grandfather’s grave that the one I picked was a 4 instead of a 2. When I found out she was a 1… for all I knew, a size 4 dress was going to be so big that the straps would slide off her shoulders and the whole thing would fall off while she was heading down the catwalk. Can you imagine why I’d be paranoid about that?
And it’s true, I wasn’t sure about the styles I’d picked out—I based them on clothes I’d seen Scarlet wearing beforehand, but they seemed pretty plain and not really “fashionable” in comparison to a lot of the other stuff in the store. As it turned out, the outfits were “safe,” but they apparently stood out pretty well in the eyes of the fashion experts. So now I can look back and see that panicking wasn’t necessary in that case, but it sure seemed appropriate at the time. The moral of the story? Get your woman’s measurements, find a good personal shopper and look at the tag before you leave. And try not to freak out about shopping while eating your dinner or you could drop beef stroganoff on the floor.
