Black is the Colour

I've been in Sheffield this weekend to visit the olds, and also see my little nephew who is now a whopping eight months old. Soon he'll reach that juncture where he'll have spent more time outside of a lady than inside one. He's grown a bit since I last saw him in January but he's still easily liftable.

It's also my mum's birthday in a few days (she is well past the juncture mentioned above) so we went out for Sunday lunch at a local country house/hotel. I hadn't been warned that we were going out for a smartish lunch so I had nothing really appropriate to wear. Me and the brother-in-law therefore resolved to visit the local shopping centre and purchase a couple of shirts (maybe with a kind of buy one get one free, matching vibe). As shopping centres go, it's not a great one, since it lacks any good shops. In particular it lacks men's clothes shops. All it had was a Burtons. The main style of shirt sold in Burtons at the moment appears to be "Gay Frilly" which wasn't really what I had in mind.

We had one option left to us. Just over the road there's a retail park with a TK Maxx. It's not a shop I've ever really used in the past so I was willing to give it a go and see what they had.

If you've never visited a TK Maxx before then I will describe it for you. Pikey Jumble Sale. It just seems to have rails and rails of random mixed up clothes. Most of which could rival anything Burtons had for sheer crapness. But in amongst the jumble I was able to find a simple black shirt. I figured it would go well with my black trousers, black shoes, black socks, black underwear and black coat. The good guys dress in black, remember that.

Behind the payment counter it's almost like they freely admit that a lot of the stuff they sell is crap. They have bins to put different types of clothes hanger in. These are labelled "Trouser Hangers" for hangers that hold trousers; "Small Hangers" and "Large Hangers" for hangers that hold small and large things respectively; and "Rubbish Hangers" presumably for hangars that held trash. I was interested to see which bin the little man would put my hangar into. Would I be deemed to have bought a Large Shirt or a Rubbish Shirt? If he classed it as rubbish would it be too late for me to change my mind and go and find a different, less rubbish one?

Well, I was worrying without reason. The hanger went in the "Large Hangars" bin. My shirt was officially not rubbish (well it's about time I bought one that wasn't).

I also bought a new belt. My old one was beyond tatty and should have been replaced years ago but it's been one of those things that I never quite get around to doing. I bought one that was as similar to the old one as I could find to ensure that my life was not confused with over-the-top amounts of change.

And that was that.