Wardrobe Malfunction!

There are times when even the (generally) well-organised among us can have clothes difficulties, and thus it was with me today.

I was going to the funeral of a departed female friend, who also acted as my 'wardrobe mistress' in a way and would go around shops searching out suitable clothes for me to buy – usually for upcoming social events.

Today, as a tribute, I had decided to wear (as far as possible) suitably funeral-coloured (for want of a better term) garments from among those we went out to acquire. The lady herself would adjust lengths and suchlkike after I had tried them on for her insepction.

What I hadn't realised is that, since buying the items I thus chose for today, I had lost girth but gained width in the neck department. This meant that, this lunchtime, as I was getting dressed for the occasion, I found the trousers loose and the top shirt button wouldn't do up.

Panic stations! Well, not quite, but I did check to see if anything else was suitable. Nothing that fit me any better was (the only shirt now has a worn collar and I keep it only for indoor wear, not in company) and the other trews are all too light-coloured for such a event. Fortunately, a belt did the trick with the latter – or seemed to – and a tight enough knot in the tie near-enough camouflaged the unfastened shirt top button.

Unfortunately, something seemed to go wrong with the belt by the time we had reached the wake, and the garment they were supposed to be keeping snug around my waist was listing to one side, slowly heading southward.

I had to hide from view while I unthreaded the offending item and re-attached the thing in an attempt to rfix the problem. It never felt right after that, but at least it looked acceptable now, from what I could perceive. I really needed a full-length mirror, but there wasn't one at the venue, so I had to hope that my appraisal matched others' views, or near enough..

For the future, I shall have to remember that my once constant size (nothing changed more than on a miniscule scale for decades) is now a variable quantity – or, in fact, a whole batch of measurements of which any one or combination could have changed since the last time I wore a particular garment.

Therefore, from now on, I shall have to do something that was never necessary in the past, which is to try on what I intend (or hope!) to wear the day before. Ah, the 'joys' of the ageing process...