Fitting Rooms are for Losers

This probably won't be the first time I mention this but my boss - is awesome. For those of you not in the entertainment industry, I wish, wish, WISH you knew how rare a thing that was. Her awesome-itude was most recently put on display when, for my birthday, she got me a gift card to Steven Alan. For those of you who don't know Steven Alan clothes and don't like hyperlinks to websites, it's basically where all the cool kids shop. High quality patterned button downs are their signature jam.

So I hear they're having a sample sale (and given that tank tops there go for around a cool hunny, this is a big deal) and I make haste to what is basically their outlet store (but with a cool moniker: Steven Alan Outpost. See? Isn't that cooler than "outlet"? Girls who wear business casual shop at outlets. Not me. I shop at an outpost.) This store is in Los Feliz, home of the Fedora-wearing, Rhodesian Ridgeback-walking, Kafka-reading, New Pornographers-humming hipsters. I mean, I stick out like a broken thumb there, if we're being honest.

Dressed in jeans, a tee and some flats, I enter the TINY store right next to the Alcove and immediately begin to camouflage. Don't mind me, just sifting through piles of smock-like blouses and baggy drawstring shorts. Pay no attention to the girl not wearing make up whose hair is accidentally and not artfully messy... And finally I grab about four different things each in about 3 different sizes cause I have no clue how hipster sizes work. They're sort of somewhere between Banana Republic sizes which make you think you're really tiny when you aren't, and European sizes, which you just don't understand. Or at least I don't.

When I ask the 5'8" Broken Social Scene-singing shopgirl who weighs all of 110 pounds at her 22 years of age to please point me to the fitting rooms, she explains to me that they don't "do fitting rooms during sample sales." When I asked her how I was supposed to know which size fit she replied, "I'll help you. Plus you can try these clothes on right over the clothes you have on."

Ladies. We all know that the only thing more humiliating than trying on clothing, is trying on clothing in front of people, 90% of whom are skinnier than we are, over the clothes we already have on.

So I'll spare you the most soul-crushing moments - except for this gem. At one point, I begin to try to figure out how to put on this complicated jumper with criss-crossing straps that are ostensibly supposed to be on your back when all is said and done. Very quickly I gauge that the size small I've plucked from the racks might not cut it. So I ask 110 pound salesgirl what size she thinks I would be. After all, she said she'd help me.

And help me she did. She insisted I was a small and specifically pointed out my narrow hips. Why thank you, hipster shopgirl! So, against my better judgement I begin to try on the size small jumper - over my clothing - in front of everyone, on the men's clothing side of the store, bumping into adorable hipster guys on both sides of me.

Sure enough, I can't even figure out where to put my head. I'm flailing with my arms in the air when hipster shopgirl comes to my rescue and proceeds to try to jam the jumper down the length of my body, contorting my arms in ways I never knew possible to get them through the arm holes or whatever, and crushing my face down into my neck in a way that genuinely hurt. Finally I cry "uncle" and ask her to stop.

But she won't stop. This jumper is going on over my bosom and hips if it's the last thing hipster shopgirl accomplishes in her adorable little life. Finally, red-faced and barely breathing, I stare into the skinny mirror behind the racks of clothes in the non-fitting room and I assess the situation.

"Does the waist of the jumper always sit like this? Right across my chest?" I ask.

"No...not usually."

The yanking and pulling continues and - in words that I can only imagine broke this girl's Iron & Wine-loving heart - uttered, "Yeah, I think I should have gone with the medium."

The zeal with which she jumped to get the small jumper off me and start tugging down the medium over my outfit DISTURBED ME. Finally I forcibly stopped her and collected the one tank top I would buy (which I'm really quite happy with since I spent $30 rather than the original price of $98 for it).

The best part? As I approach the cashier he tells me that they don't accept gift cards at sample sales.

So I'll be going back next week.