Bra Hooks and Camels

Ladies! We all know how many hooks are on our bra fastenings, right? 

(Gentlemen please avert your eyes for a moment). 

Well apparently not. I sell three options of bra extensions – narrow 2 hook, wide 2 hook and wide 3 hook. Now, without checking would you know which one you needed?

A couple of summers ago, (I know it wasn’t last year because we didn’t get a summer), I had the shop door open so I could benefit from the fresh Fylde air and the High Street traffic emissions. I had a lady wanting to purchase a bra extender due to M & S’s lingerie designs being more suited to those who were last in the queue rather than the ones who got the lion’s share of curves when they were being given out.

 I showed her the three options and without any warning or reversing alarms, the lady quickly turned her rear view to me and whipped up her top whilst giving the instruction, “Just see what I’ve got on will you?”

 I swiftly moved to the door to shut it and put myself between the flashing lady and the unsuspecting public. After all, I hadn’t been in charge of Stitches for long at that stage and I didn’t want to lower the tone so soon in my career. (Plenty of time for that later). I felt sure that Mr PDP wouldn’t have let me loose in retail if this sort of thing was going to happen.

When I had stopped laughing, I exclaimed, “Really Madam! We are not that sort of shop!” She was unabashed, very cheery and so happy that she had located the correct item to relieve the pressure on her person, she bought three.

A popular question on entering the shop is, “I don’t suppose you sell ……..?”  Now, I consider this a personal challenge and generally I think I can answer “Yes, I do” about 85% of the time. It’s not easy to keep up a good track record though when asked, “I don’t suppose you sell camels do you?”

In fact, I think it is very unfair and quite unsporting to even ask that sort of question and expect an affirmative answer. Camels? This is Garstang. Why would I sell camels?

Now if only they’d asked for cows, sheep, hens, chicks, roosters, ducks, horses, sheepdogs, goats, Highland Cattle, turkeys, llamas, donkeys, elephants, monkeys, pigs, frogs, cats, foxes, penguins, mice, pandas, aardvarks, (how do you spell that?), lions, alligators, hedgehogs, zebras, badgers, foxes, moles, otters, rabbits, koala bears, butterflies, snails, tigers, dormice, giraffes, weasels, toad, squirrels, beavers, tortoises, hippos or dolphins, I would have been able to oblige. 

But camels? …… oh hang on … what’s that I see lurking behind that monkey? 

Oops, a camel. 

I really must clean up more often then I wouldn’t lose things.

I feel bad now that I took the hump about it all.