We’re on our way to the mountains and the monastery. Pauline and Emma have brought tops and long skirts to slip on for when we get there. I was decently covered by my T-shirt and shorts. As we neared the monastery, still on the coach, our tour guide was giving us instructions on how to behave once we were off the coach. “Please make sure you have on appropriate clothing,” she said, “No shorts – trousers for men, long skirts for women.”
Hang on, what did she say? Trousers for men? That’s not what the booking agent had said was it? I checked again with the tour guide. “I was told these shorts would be OK,” I said. “No shorts, trousers for men. You must be covered to ankles,” she said, “they have guards at the monastery entrance to turn away those people improperly dressed ”
What could I do? Sneak in the back way? I stood behind the coach and decided that all I could do was pull my shorts down so that the waistband came down as far as it could without everything popping out and at the same time stretch my T-shirt down to bridge the gap. I think I was looking good. It looked like I had on an extra long pair of shorts and I was deformed but I seemed to be quite decently covered. Everything was fine until I tried to move.
Couldn’t walk you see.
With the crotch of the shorts so low down I couldn’t move my legs. The only way I could move was by doing a strange sort of jerky bunny-hop with one hand holding on to the top of my shorts and the bottom of my T-shirt to make sure that they didn’t part company. I was soon getting the hang of it by practising my bunny-hopping up and down outside the monastery entrance. I’d decided to do it there, firstly to make me feel more relaxed about it and secondly, to give the guards outside a chance to familiarise themselves with some lunatic before I bunny-hopped past them into the monastery. I think this’ll work, I thought, one more check with the tour guide and I’ll bunny-hop right on in. When the tour guide saw me she frowned and shouted hysterically, “No good. No good. Trousers needed.”
“So what the hell do I do?” I shouted back.
“You go down that road there, at bottom will be place to get trousers for monastery,” she shouted back again.
Luckily I wasn’t the only one in need of trousers so off I and a few other blokes went in search of trousers. At the end of the road was a bloke standing by the open tail-gate of his car. On top of the car balanced precariously was a cardboard sign with the handwritten words “Trousers For Monastery Visit”. I stood around with these other sad blokes while he proceeded to look each of us up and down and with his expert eye assessed our exact measurements without even using a tape measure. “Here, you look good in these,” he said to me as he threw a pair of chocolate brown, wide pinstripe trousers at me. As I struggled to put them on over my shorts it was obvious his expert eye had told him that I was a fat dwarf, inside leg 28, waist 30. The trousers had a nice flair to the leg and the style, wide brown pinstripe, would have looked a lot better if I’d had a tommy-gun under my arm. As I still struggled to get them on I realised the waist was just big enough to get my legs through and with all the will in the world would not close around my waist. The zip would only do up about an eighth of the way up while the top of the trousers was left open and flapping in the breeze. This, coupled with the fact that the trouser legs were flapping away about four inches above my bare ankles prompted me to say to the man, “How do I look?”
“OK,” he said, “one pound please.”
This was worse than bunny-hopping. The only way I could walk in them was very, very carefully in case they slowly slipped down to my ankles, but at least I could walk, the chocolate brown pinstripe contrasting nicely with my dark green T-shirt and white trainers. Think I’m looking pretty cool I thought as I flashed a bare ankle at the guards and walked into the monastery.
It wasn’t until I caught a glimpse of my reflection that I realised I looked like I was a demented old fool on day release from the local mental institution. I was even carrying a plastic carrier bag to complete the image.
Once inside, everywhere I went I kept seeing blokes walking past in funny trousers. It was like being at the circus. There was one poor tall bloke whose trousers seemed to fit perfectly apart from the legs which only reached to just below his knees. Some blokes had trousers that were too long, crumpled up all over their shoes while some were just too ridiculous for words. I spent many a happy moment waiting for them to pass by and then laughing like a drain. In fact, if we’d all stood together in one big group I’m sure we could have all swapped trousers and got a pair that fitted.
Wherever I went all I could see was blokes stopping each other and saying, “Where did you get them?”
“Bloke with the car.”
“Oh, bloke with the car. Mmmm…..me too.”
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