The joy of alterations

I'm not sure whether this is something to be proud of but, I have never had to have any article of clothing altered. That was...until now. When I first got hired for my paramedic service, I was sized for my uniform. The pants were supposed to be specifically tailored to suit only me. The man who did the sizing was not only creepy, but clearly a little kooky as well. Comments like "spread 'em," without a hint of laughter or comedy, and "nope, you're a 41 - the tape doesn't lie," left me feeling like this man was clearly out of his mind. More about the whole "you're a 41" thing. This man measures my waist and decides that I am a 41 incher. Now, I don't know about the rest of the world, but to me, 41 inches is an astronomically huge waist size for a woman of 5'7.5", especially seeing how in jeans I am between a 32 and 33. At first I was shocked. I thought, "NO WAY!" Then I verbalized my concern to this man - "I am not a 41." He said, "the tape don't lie."

Sure enough, when my pants came in almost 3 months later (which by the way I also feel was a really long time to wait for pants) they were ginormous. My fellow medics were telling me this is the norm for this man and I should just deal with it or get my pants altered. My supervisor told me to go to a cleaner and have them done and then to forward the bill to the county to cover - doesn't sound too shabby to me! I finally got around to taking them to a cleaner today to get them altered. I switched from my comfy jeans into these large baggy pants so the seamstress could begin her magic. She started poking and prodding me in various regions, assessing the amount of "taking in" she had to do. She sadly told me that the bagginess in the leg region was pretty much unalterable due to the crazy pockets, reflective tape and ugly creasing down the front of my pants, which look like this.


(link can be found here)

She accidentally poked me with pins several times but didn't seem to notice. As I was disrobing to switch back into my jeans I loss my balance and stepped quite heavily on the hem of my paramedic pants and landed on several of these pins again. In total I counted 5 pin prick marks on my body following this joyous ordeal. I can only hope that this is the last time I will ever have to worry about having an item of clothing altered. It was not a pleasant experience.