fitting room etiquette

I am not going to talk about how annoying it is to go into a dressing room (as a customer or employee) to find that someone has left panty hose, tank tops, jeans, sweaters, and headbands in lumps on the floor, on top of a chair, and hanging (but not from hangers) on the hooks on the walls. Although that is quite annoying, we all already know it is not proper fitting room etiquette. This is about a piece of fitting room etiquette that is much less well-known.

The other day I was in Talbot's with my grammy in search of a white cardigan that was just like the pink one she was wearing and the t-shirts that she saw on sale in the catalog. We found the white cardigan on one of the shelves by the entrance.

"I don't know if that is the same cardigan," Grammy said.

I checked the label on the sweater she was wearing, which was hidden beneath the brown puffy North Face jacket that used to be mine, but now is Grammy's.

"Grammy, they are made out of the same materials," I said, holding one of the folded white cardigans in my arms.

"Maybe it's not the same quality," Grammy said.

"Why don't you just try it on?" I asked. "What size are you?"

"Medium, medium or small."

I am just 5'7" (on a good day) and my grammy is at least four inches shorter than me - and that is taking into account the large brown curls that sit on top of her head. Sometimes I worry that the wind or an ocean wave will blow her right over if I don't reach out and grab her hand. But Grammy says that no one needs to worry about her and that she was the tallest person in her graduating class. My uncle says she went to a school of midgets. My mom buys Grammy clothes from the petite section for Christmas and every year Grammy holds them up and says, Oh I love this, but Suzanne, I don't know if this will fit me.

I found a size-small sweater in the pile and thought I would probably be coming back for an extra small.

Ten minutes later we were walking toward the fitting rooms.

"OK, I'll wait out here," I said. I couldn't remember the last time that I had been shopping with my grammy when she tried something on. It would have taken me hours to count the minutes she had spent outside the fitting room waiting for me, though.

"You can come in," Grammy said.

She took off her coat, scarf, and pink cardigan, and was just about to slip the white cardigan over her head and on top of her tank top, when she put the white cardigan down.

"Oh, I need my cover thing," she said, and started combing her hands through her purse. She took out a small plastic bag and turned it over in her hands looking for the opening. "Can you open this?"

I pulled the bag open.  Something clear and also plastic was inside. I handed the opened bag back to Grammy and she unravelled a clear, plastic shower cap. I looked at the cap in her hands and then at her eyes.

"Oh, it's so I don't get make-up on the shirts," Grammy said. "Don't you hate when the person who tried something on before you left make-up marks?"

What make-up? I thought. Your dime-size dab of foundation cream?


Grammy placed one edge of the shower cap below her chin and pulled another edge up to her forehead, so that the shower cap covered her face from ear to ear and chin to forehead.

"Wait, you really do this? You put a shower cap over your face so you don't get make-up on the stuff you try on?"

She nodded. "Just let me know if I turn blue," she said in a muffled voice. She pulled the white cardigan over her face, slowly, though, so as to not catch the edges of the shower cap. She took the shower cap off her face. "Your aunt and cousin know I do this," she said.

Text Samantha after this to confirm that she does not think this normal and ask why she never thought to share this with me, I thought.

"OK, Gram."

Grammy tried on four or five t-shirts, different sizes and styles, before I convinced her to try a size-small from the petite section. Maybe she was tired of putting the shower cap on and taking it off so many times, maybe she just forgot, or maybe she didn't want me to stare at her in disbelief again, but she didn't place the shower cap over her face this time. After she pulled the t-shirt over her head, I noticed a smudge of beige about the size of a thumbnail on the collar.

I opened my mouth and then closed my lips. Couldn't tell her.




P.S. Thanks for the headscarf, Grammy. Talbot's isn't so bad after all..love you.

P.P.S. Valentine's Day is on Monday.  And Cookies for Kids' Cancer is just a click away... http://www.cookiesforkidscancer.org/default.asp