Pretty (embarassed) in Pink

Yesterday I woke up and got ready for an early morning shift of work. I opened my closet and found on top of the pile, my brand new pink dress shirt, which I had bought right before leaving.

My reasoning was simple. I'd need a nice euro-Pink dress shirt to go with my euro-purse.

It still had all the tags on it, and although I noticed it's soft cottony feel, although the scissors were only 2m (6 feet) away, and although I could hear my mother's voice, firmly planted in my superego, yelling at me not to do it, I grabbed the tags and gave them a solid pull.

Oddly enough, I noticed the last plastic ring was still completely in tact, but I had somehow successfully removed the tag from my shirt. However, there was no miracle responsible for this. The only miracle in this story is that I only managed to tear one hole out of my new dress shirt, not three.

At work, my Polish students, who ironically enough, happened to be an entire class full of middle aged women all resembling my mother, told me to go to a sewing shop behind the Rynek to buy some thread to fix it.

I made my way into the tiny shop full of babcias, and found a squat, older woman behind the counter. I whipped out my best Polish, which loosely translated sounded like this:

Hello. Me put on shirt today. It new shirt. Me (exaggerated pulling gesture) tag. Me make hole. Me very stupid.

To which she replied.

Oh dear sir. You nice, nice man. Here is some thread for your shirt. Oh, you poor, poor boy. Here are some directions to another babcia, who can repair your shirt. (3 minutes of unintelligible directions)






To which I made this face.






To which she replied.

Oh your poor, poor, poor boy. Let me fix your shirt for you here, just buy the thread.

Me: I go home? Bring shirt back you?

Her: No. Just take off your shirt.

Me: Me naked here? But it's cold. And many babcias.

Her: Oh get over it. Take off your clothes. And while you're at it. Thread the needle, I can't see well anymore.

So I took off my shirt, and sat topless in a corner, with my dress pants and farmer's tan, trying to thread the needle for her. Thankfully, the extreme embarassment that I was feeling was slowing turning my body a uniform shame of red as more and more babcias came into the store staring at me.

My embarassment was made worse because:
1) the lady noticed I was embarassed and half naked, and pointed it out to everyone that walked in the store, ensuring everyone noticed me there. Thankfully I had my head buried deep in my hands so I didn't see all of this.
2) she started yelling at me for not being able to thread the needle, and looked at my nerd glasses, and yelled that I must be at least as blind as her, then grabbed the thread and needle and did it herself.

Well, eventually she fixed my shirt, overcharged me for the thread, and gave me back my shirt. Finally, as I was putting it back on, thinking it was all finally over, a cute girl came into the store and she of course told her "You should have been here a minute ago. He had his shirt off you know" All Polish and any wit I may possess left me at this point and I could only nod my head and smile like an idiot.

I left the store to her yelling at me "Do you have an iron? No?!! Then go buy an iron. Everyone needs an iron. And stop pulling on those tags!" I ran, but if I poke my head out the window, I can still hear her.


The morale of the story is this: Don't pull the fucking tag.

It's best to think of it as an emergency ripcord to an instant shaming. "Pull here to release babcia and extinguish all dignity within 4-6 feet."