Easy to Translate

Tales from the Cutting Counter:  In the last few years, this area has become home to a few dozen Nepalese and Bhutanese refugee families.  I often see them in the fabric store, often in multi-generational groups.  Yesterday, a grandmother, father, and two teenaged girls came in together.  Grandma was traditionally dressed in loose trousers, tunic, overshirt.  Dad had a foot in each culture:  tunic shirt with khakis.  And the girls looked like the teens you'd see anywhere in your own neighborhood, shirts emblazoned with the name of the stores where they were purchased, yoga pants, hoodies.  I don't know what they needed fabric for, but the teenagers headed straight for the spangles and sparkles and shiny special occasion stuff.  Grandma headed to cottons.  Dad just looked a little bewildered, like any dad would.  Grandma spoke no English at all.  Dad spoke enough to get through the day, as did the girls.  Eventually (and they were in the store for a long time) they come to the counter with four bolts of fabric:  two red cottons with tiny prints, a red satin, and a gold mesh heavily embellished with gold sequins.  The girls immediately pull out their phones text text text text.  Dad is left to translate.  Grandma is annoyed.  Families are families.  First bolt:  Two meters.  I do the conversion, measure... there's just a little more on the bolt than that.  Dad stops me, confers with Grandma and girls.  They take the whole piece of fabric.  (Grandma is now visibly annoyed with the teens, who are not being Good Helpers text text text.)  Three meters, no, Yardsplease, of the second red.  Done and done.  Up comes the gold fancy.  Dad asks the price, I check it for him.  "One meter."  I measure, cut, fold.  My counter is sprinkled with bits of gold sequins.  I brush them into a pile, sweep them into the palm of my hand.  I catch Grandma's eye, and hold my closed hand out to her.  She puts her hand out, rather confused.  I sprinkle the glittery bits into her open hand. They sparkle as they fall.  She looks at me, breaks out into a huge grin, and laughs out loud.  Dad smiles.  Teenagers look at me like I've just fallen on my head.  Some things cross cultures.  Pixie dust is one of them.

I love my job.

Really.

Tales from the Cutting Counter:  A middle-aged woman approached the counter.  It was obvious she was thinking and trying to formulate a question.  She looked a little overwhelmed.  "I have a question," she said.  She hesitated, and chuckled a little.  "How many yards in a foot?"  I grinned, and said, "None."  Before I could go on and explain the whole inches-feet-yards thing to her, with a surprised look on her face, she said, "Really!?!"

Short and To the Point

Tales from the Cutting Counter:   A woman brings me a bolt of black fabric.  She says she needs just a little bit, she's repairing something or other.  I show her half a yard--too much.  I show her a quarter yard--too little.  I show her a third--she stops, thinks.   "Which will work best for you, the quarter yard or the third yard?" I ask.  "Whichever is smaller," she answers.

The Right Tool for the Job

Tales from the Cutting Counter:

A gentleman approaches the cutting counter.  He is fifty-something, well dressed, tall.  "I have these pipes in my basement," says he, "about this big."  He makes a circle with his thumb and middle finger to show the diameter of the pipes.  "I am looking for something to wrap around them to insulate them."

I hope the incredulity I was feeling did not show on my face.  I spoke slowly.  "Have you considered, um, pipe insulation?" There's a plumbing supply place less than a mile from the fabric store.

"I have," said the man.  "But I notice you have long cardboard tubes inside your upholstery fabric.  Do you give those away?"

"No, we reuse them,"  I said.  I am thinking fast, here.  "What about pool noodles?  You could slit them down the side."

"Cardboard will be best,"  he said, definitively.  "Thanks anyway."

This past week has featured single-digit temperatures, and my guess is that the local plumbers have thawed a lot of pipes in a lot of basements.  And nothing insulates pipe better than

cardboard.  :/

My Two Cents

Tales from the Cutting Counter:  It's part of my job to stay on top of current trends in bridal decor, since so many brides like to make things themselves for their weddings.  Right now, burlap is all the rage for table runners, ribbon, you-name-it.  A woman came to the cutting counter today.  She'd been browsing for a while.  "I need your opinion on something," she started.  "My daughter wants the groomsmen in her wedding to wear ties made from burlap.  What do you think?"  "What do I think?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.  "I think that your daughter should not have neckties made from burlap at her wedding."  I said.  The woman laughed out loud.  "Me EITHER!" she exclaimed.  We had a fun little chat after that about planning weddings, and Pinterest, and how smelly, itchy, and generally awful burlap is.  I think she's going with a nice, slubby linen for the ties. 

Update!

Tales from the Cutting Counter:  A month or so ago, as you may recall, a customer attempted to return unwashed cookie sheets that she had already used.

Yesterday, she returned, and attempted to return the same dirty cookie sheets.

You can't make this stuff up.

Use Your Words, Use Your Words

Tales from the Cutting Counter:

A woman and her teenaged son come up to the cutting counter.  The teenager looks as though he'd rather be at the gates of hell than at the fabric store.  The woman begins to ask me a question, and she's gesturing furiously as she speaks, trying to get her point across.  "Do you have the thing (hands flying furiously about belt level) that you know that thing that not really sort of pants (hands still flying, add head nod toward teenager) thing you know that thing?"
Me:  "Um.  I don't know."
Teenager:  "I told you they wouldn't have it."

Later that day.

A woman puts three bolts of tan fabric on the counter in front of me.  "I need two of these," she says.  "Which two?"  I ask.  "This one," she says.
 "Okay." I say.  "Let's start with this one.  How much do you need?"
 "Two inches," she says, looking at me like I'm a totally incompetent slug. 
"Two inches?"  I ask, puzzled.  I am trying to figure out what she wants.
 "Two inches."
 "Okay."  I lay the fabric out, ready to cut.  "Are you trying to match paint, or other fabric?" I ask, assuming she just needs a swatch.
 "No, I need two INCHES," she says, exasperated.
 "This is two inches," I say, showing her with my fingers where the two inch cut line will run.  "Oh!  I meant two FEET! A foot is 10 inches, right?" she says, with a little laugh.
 "Twelve.  But no problem.  Here's what two feet looks like,"  I say, rolling off more fabric.  I show her that cut line, too.
 "No.  Is that feet?"  she asks. She has totally confused herself, and confused me. 
 "Yes.  Did you mean yards?"  I ask.  I roll off two yards, lay it out and show her the cut line.
"Yes!"  she exclaims, triumphantly.   "But you'd better cut me 2 and a half, because that's not going to be enough." 
"Do you need two yards and half of two yards, which would be three yards,  or two yards 18 inches?"  I ask. 
"Whichever is more," she says, breezily.
I cut three yards, print her ticket, and send her on her way.  I reshelve all three bolts of fabric.

Those gentle weeping sounds you heard about quarter past two yesterday?  That was me.