Now I like leisurely clothes shopping, and there's nothing wrong with Saturday afternoon window shopping either. What I don't like, however, are FSSs (Forced Shopping Sprees). That's when eg. you know you HAVE TO buy a new pair of trousers because your old ones are falling apart. And we're not talking 'cool' torn second-hand look here, we're talking shredded corduroy held together by nothing but a handful of threads. Anyway, so I headed out for my FFS. Having nothing but two hours on my hands, I ventured straight into Topshop (yes, I know...). First mistake. Topshop don't seem to DO reasonably priced bog standard flares (and I don't DO straight trousers or funny carrot shaped legwear). Duh. Having found the denim department at last (after fighting my way through rails and fucking rails of this season's scary 'hippie chic' stuff), I realised I didn't actually know what size I was.

Oops. It's only been seven years since I bought my last pair of trousers. Obviously I wasn't keen on making even more of a fool of myself than I already am and bravely grabbed every size there is between eight and 14. Twenty minutes later, me and my potential new trousers had made it into the fitting rooms. Am I the only person who finds these very fucking humiliating? The bright neon likes make even the healthiest of people make look like the victim of a rather nasty food poisoning, and there's never enough hooks in there either. Of course the actual cubicles are way too small, too. Damn you, Topshop! The cubicle next to mine was populated by a moody teenager, concerned mother included. 'Muu-huum, I can pick my own clothes by now. I'm thirteen for fuck's sake!'. 'Don't you swear in front of your mother! I'm telling you, these are way too big!'. 'But Mum, you don't understand...'.

Great stuff. In the meantime, I had worked out that I was just about able to squeeze my backside into a size ten. Only that then I was unable to breathe. Thank God I'd taken a variety of sizes. Ha! A twelve it was then. But, shock! Horror! Then I realised that IDENTICAL trousers come in different lengths. Haha. Needless to say that aforementioned trousers did not only cover the entirety of my feet, but also most of the cubicle's floor space. Goddamit. So it was out onto the shop floor again. With my shoelaces still open. And yes, I tripped over quite a few times. Eventually I got hold of a standard length size twelve of my desired piece of legwear and headed for the checkout. What I hadn't realised was that my shoelaces were STILL open, my hair had been electrified by my jumper and that I had a lenghty blue biro mark right across my cheek. Cheers, woman-behind-the-counter, for pointing that one out AFTER I had a fair amount of people pointing and laughing at me...