Cubical walls are getting a bit more decorated, after my long weekend. I have relatives here, but my dad’s planned all these great things for them to do and did not include my sisters or me! It’s great having my aunts here though, they’re super friendly and chatty and love sharing awful stories about my dad from when he was a kid. According to them, he was the ‘troublemaker’ in the family. I have an incredibly hard time picturing that, but they kept on telling us all about the rotten things that he did as a child and how their parents were always having trouble with him. So funny.
Oh, I’ve learned that my uncle is incredibly crafty/sneaky when it comes to getting the bill. I think it’s a cultural thing. But he insisted on paying the dinner bill last night and my sister snagged it and he went on about how she was a child and she shouldn’t be expected to pay for the bill (she’s mid/late 20s, employed, has money, etc.). So he gets up and walks up behind her and then pulls out his wallet and pulls out enough cash in USD to pay for the dinner bill. My sister had her credit card out. The person handling it? Took the US cash because they took it at a 1:1 rate for the money (so they’d come out a bit on top). Ugh, crafty uncle. Very quiet, it’s always the quiet ones that cause problems, haha. He’s funny though. He didn’t even recognize me because the last time he saw me, I was 4 or 5 and I was always wearing dresses and sun hats! Now I don’t own that many dresses, and I don’t own a single sun hat. I didn’t really recognize him, but I do remember him. People change a lot in 15 years to the point where I get a little “I know you, but I’m not sure from where…” Although it’s been established between my aunts and uncle that I’ve changed the most (well, yeah, from 4 or 5 to 20 years, I would certainly hope that I’ve changed some!).
Anyways, I went shopping with my sisters today (after we were ditched by my parents and other relatives after lunch). I got new runners that were on clearance (a lot of them in the same style/colour were on clearance) for $20, which I thought was a nice deal since I need new everyday shoes to wear anyways and they fit! But the weird thing is that they were a size 7… and the ones that I had on were a size 8… and they were the same size, after I compared them side by side and used that shoe size chart that they had on the ground. I thought shoe sizes were supposed to be a standardized thing! But I guess it’s kind of like bra sizes, which annoys me as well! I get so used to being able to buy a certain size and then have to go through trying out various sizes that are close together just to get the right fit.
I happened upon an interesting store today. It was new, they only had a fabric banner going “BIG SALE” over the store front entrance so my sisters and I decided to go in. They had a lot of clothes at decent prices, like 2 short sleeve tops for $5. But closer inspection, we realized that something was a little off… See, there was a bunch of these shirts that had little fabric strips sewn onto the inside of the shirt, right about where it said stuff like 100% cotton and size M. One of the shirts had the fabric strip sewn loosely and I was able to see what was underneath it and it had H&M neatly screenprinted onto the back of the shirt. There was a whole rack of robes and nighties that had the original store tags cut (badly cut though, I recognized them as being from La Vie en Rose because I’ve totally been stalking one of products on their website to see when it was going on sale…). And my question is, would stores like this even be legal? I mean, they’re selling products are cut-throat prices (shirts at 2 for $5, robes and nighties at prices like $5/each!) but they’re clearly covering up the origin of the clothes (H&M, La Vie en Rose, La Senza, RW & Co, and some other ones that I don’t remember any more). Is it because they didn’t acquire the clothes by legally and socially acceptable means, or is there some other reason for hiding the original brand names of the clothes? It was a really clean looking store. It had sparse lighting, no change rooms, racks and racks of clothes with cut brand name tags or fabric strips over the screenprinted names. Would you have gotten a weird vibe from a store like this?
we have a store kind of like that called rugged wearhouse. its all this designer stuff thats really cheap because its usually irregular or something like that. sometimes the tags are cut and things like that but generally speaking i know they have some kind of deal with the manufacturers
but the way you describe that store it would kind of make me wonder as well