The petite cheerful Asian seamstress always cajoles me when I have to have pants let out and says my wife will be proud when I have pants taken in.
I don’t have to say much to send her into fits of giggles, but she gets very business like when she adjusts trouser lengths and sets cuffs, and reassures me she can compensate even when I’m wearing sandals.
As she’s measuring me or while I’m waiting I enjoy looking at her cubby, which is so neat and minimal—just her supplies, spools here, tickets there, a minimum of personal items, so that each category has its own sector, uncramped and uncluttered. A placid shrine to an ideal of simple needs, simply met, a vision of modest sufficiency in contrast to the shoppers pawing the jammed deep-discount racks at the Barney II liquidation store, just a door down from Holstens.
And when It’s men’s week at Barneys II (no relation to the orignal Barneys in NYC) I sometimes leave with an armload of clothes and make a bee line across the streeet to the calm and friendly confines of the dry cleaning and tailor shop.