It was the lettering on the window that did me in.
TROUSER SHORTENS.
FIVE DOLLARS.
Surely it should be Trouser Shortenings, I mused, as I thundered north on into the Octagon.
An hour later I was still thinking about it.
Perhaps the logical alternative, Trousers Shortened, didn't fit? Is Shorten a tailoring term, a NOUN?When I got home I consulted our oracle, the 1909 edition of Websters New International Dictionary, a volume so huge and thick (2662 pages of tiny print, seven kilograms), my wife uses it to try to re-flatten books she has dropped in the bath.
No, Webster was emphatic, shorten is a transitive and intransitive verb only.
And then the full meaning of this sign hit me - these people shorten trousers for $5! Even women whose lives I have saved in three world wars charge me $10, more recently $12, to shorten my jeans and trousers.
And my jeans and trousers do need shortening, always, for I am the human equivalent of England's Friday Afternoon Car, the ones with bits not assembled because the assemblers were thinking only of getting bladdered at the weekend.
When God assembled me, on a Friday afternoon, he left out a crucial mid-panel of leg on both sides, hence trousers and jeans that fit snugly around waist and rear are three inches too long at the foot.
And now all my leg-covering purchases could be shortened for just $5 apiece.
I was dumbfounderstruck.
So I measured up, and found my Trouser Shortens would need to be 30in from the crutch.
I took in two pairs for a trial.
A lovely woman asked if I had tried them on.
"Of course," I said.
She asked if I would like to put them on again in one of the four adjoining changing rooms so she could measure accurately.
"No need," I responded brightly, "I have done the business: 30 centimetres from the crotch."
"Perhaps you mean 30 inches?" she offered kindly.
"Yes, that is utterly what I mean," I countered.
"Let's just measure anyway," she said.
Thirty inches from the crotch went precisely to the point where I had already hatcheted one of the ugliest hems ever stitched by a human with functioning fingers.
We peered at the tape measure.
"I think twenty-eight and a-half," I said, oblivious to any suggestion of previous error.
A couple of days later I picked up my Levi 501s and Chino trousers.
They were immaculate, I swear they had even been ironed.
I tried them on in front of a full length mirror at home.
I looked like Dan Carter.
So I had received a sitting, a consultation and two perfect Trouser Shortens for $10.
It is 2010, there are no bargains like this anywhere anymore.
Trust me, I never stop looking.
I went back a week later to have two more pairs done.
I tell you, these things come back so beautifully I am seriously considering using this place for my laundry.
When I fronted up for the second batch, I had not looked carefully at the card - they were not due to be ready for another hour.
The women appeared to be very busy, the large workroom I could see into was awash with assemblings of what I presumed from all the photos on the wall were special occasion and wedding clothing.
Two Trouser Shortens at $5 a pop was small potatoes alongside the most important couture someone was about to wear in their whole life that Saturday, but somebody somewhere dropped everything and did my jeans and trousers while I waited.
There was a signed poster of the Tall Blacks on the wall.
Basketball people! It just kept getting better.
It was almost suspicious.
I am going to keep buying long trousers (Trouser Purchasings) so I can keep going in for more Shortens.
I love a damn good local shop.
• Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
