Idle Chat

Tailor shop owner here!

This happened the other day. A lady came in with a small bundle of pants. She immediately asks if she can get an extra discount for quantity of items. I told her no. I really only start giving small discounts if an order is $100+... but usually not if I am already giving the 10% off seniors discount which she qualified for.

She mentioned that she just retired as a seamstress. She had her own shop but had to close up because she had a cataract surgery go wrong and couldn't see well anymore. Once she said that, I knew which shop she used to run since I knew that it recently closed up and the reason for it.

She started asking me how I measure hems. I told her and she started going on and on about how she used to do it... which is a method that I don't like. Plus, I've been doing it my way (well, the old masters way) since I started here almost 12 years ago.

I pinned it my way and she kept on "Oh, don't you have the beeswax chalk and mark it like that..." and blah blah blah. Well, yeah sure I do, but I just pin for now. I mark it up when it is on the table. She liked to mark the lengths on the side seams and I prefer to do it on the front and heel of the pants.

When one pair was marked, she asked for a tape measure and spread the pants out on my front counter to see what the inseam was. She kept repeating "Don't worry sweetie, I trust you. It is just that I used to be a seamstress too..."

While she was doing that to each pair of pants, I helped out like three other customers. Finally, she decided that only 3 of her items needed work. 2 need shortening, 1 only needs the fallen down hem to be put back up. I ring her up and then she asks for a pair of scissors. I figure that she wants to cut tags off or something... but instead, she took the scissors and a pair of pants over to the chair and sat down and started picking down the old hem "to help." ... She had asked earlier if I would give her a discount if she did that and I said no.

Just then, another lady walked in. This other lady bugs me. She loves to talk about how hard her life is, all of the sucky things going on in it, all the maladies she has, and especially stories that no one but her (and maybe other people that were there) could care about. The most fun part about her is the way she talks. You know how when you are thirsty and develop that thick spit in the corners of your mouth? Well she ALWAYS HAS THAT... and you can hear it smacking away as she talks. I have misophonia and mouth/chewing sounds are one of the things that drives me mad.

So she is in the changing room and starts talking about how her new condo is all messed up (elevator doesn't work, parking spot is too small, no one told her about these things, yadda yadda) and I am just trying to be polite by saying things like "Oh, that is terrible!" and whatnot even though I don't care at all. I fit the garment and she goes to change back.

She has her shirt all unbuttoned and she comes back out of the stall to keep complaining about her life, sharing her bra and saggy boobs with everyone. She keeps aaaaaalmost getting back to closing the stall curtain and changing back, but then comes back out to complain more.

Finally she comes out and I ring her up. She is heading to the door, but then stops to chit-chat with the first lady. They keep trying to out-complain each other with their eyesight problems and interrupt each other.

Then she sits down in the stool on the opposite side of the shop (really only like 10/12ft or so) and they start a conversation. SpitLady starts telling ExSeamstress about where she lives and ES exclaims that SLs new condo is built on a swamp (the land used to be a swamp back in the 20s) then the story morphed (somehow) into how SL used to be a nurse and was taking care of a violent patient.

Meanwhile I have long since bowed out of polite interjections and just went back to my laptop to continue drawing. I was doing my best to ignore them... ES was still working away on taking down this hem so I wasn't going to tell her to leave, and it would have just been rude to tell SL to leave.

FIIIIIINALLY ES seemed to be done unpicking and they decided to leave together, still talking. ES hands me the pants and was like "I only got one hem down, but I could still take the other one down to help!" I assured her that I was fast and would have no problem doing it and to please have a lovely day.

They both left. YAAAAAAAY!!! So I looked at the job she had done. She managed to get the hem on one leg down, but she cut through the serging (the thread finishing the edge so the fabric won't fray) and she didn't take down the stitching holding the side slit together. She was working at this for THIRTY MINUTES.

Curious, I took down the other hem (cleanly) and the side slit on both legs. It took me 45 seconds.