Do they have that in medium?

I blinked at the salesgirl. She was under four feet tall but had an old-looking face. I knew she was in her mid to late twenties, she was mature and helpful and knew her stuff. I was instantly impressed with her customer service. But she didn’t perceive me to be as skinny as her. That’s fine. She was probably a XXS with room to spare. She was also likely Philippino. I was white girl with a winter jacket on top of a sweater.

I had brought three coats into the change room to try on. Another salesgirl had run out to find the jacket I had just tried on in a different colour. The short sales girl had been working helping other customers – it was busy in the change room – she turned to me quickly, and asked,

“Do they have that one in medium?”

I blinked. Trying to comprehend.

She thought I was a medium. She thought I was getting another jacket to try on in the same size she perceived I had already been trying on.  I couldn’t figure out how to correct her without feeling like a moron for saying it, as if I would sound like I was in self-denial. My mother, never one to allow for silence, piped up.

“She’s an XSmall.”

Thanks, mom.

I don’t belong in Aritzia. I wasn’t wearing enough make-up (I wasn’t wearing ANY make-up). My hair wasn’t dyed and teased and straightened like the other girls’. My shoes were runners, not ballet flats and my skinny leg jeans were too long and bunchy rather than ending perfectly at the bottom of my ankles.

And then the salesgirl asked if I was a medium. It’s not the end of the world, to be a medium. What it meant to me was not that I looked 20 lbs heavier, but that my clothes were too big. Which is true. I felt all of a sudden very self-conscious about the fact that my style is casual, all the time. That the sweater I was wearing I had bought at Garage, a store that targets primarily girls between the ages of 14 and 16. That my jacket had been bought at Athlete’s World, not a women’s fashion store. I just felt out of place, and bad about it.

As for affording things at Aritzia, I typically can’t.

I’m going to wear my winter jacket another year, or at least for as long as I can. We’ll see how I feel walking to work once it gets really cold. I’ve already found that at about -5 I shiver uncontrollably in my current coat (I feel like it’s gotten thin, if that’s possible). The Aritzia coats are most definitely higher quality, and warmer, and the salesgirl I talked with said she’d had hers three years and was often waiting for buses outside in her travels to and from school (I suspect UofT). If I bought the coat it would be roughly the cost of three coats at the price I typically spend on a winter jacket.

Arg. The cost of living. I do spend significantly less than most on travel, but living without a car is not an expense-free lifestyle. I just have to figure out what sort of money I should spend keeping myself warm this winter. Dang you, coat! I want you, but will you last three winters? Will you be three times as valuable as a $100 coat? Will you kept me warm?

Moreover, what will I wear if I go back to get it?