So there I sat, watching the people come and go through the slats in the door. I was in the corner changing room, and I’d been there for the past three hours. It’s amazing the kind of people that come through a department store changing room on a Tuesday morning.

First it was the professional shopping moms. They came in with changing room limit, an armload of clearance items, and tried everything on with huffs and puffs and grunts and the occasional ooh. But for the most part they left empty handed. I think they were taking advantage of children at school and looking for something for themselves, hoping to find a reduced item they could afford to splurge on. This is why the rest of us only find size zero left on the clearance rack.

Later on the college girls came in, trying on the latest fashions and fueling their disorders. They would groan about this or that, ooh and ah over the other thing, rationalize the price, and tell each other how “so you” something was.

Another group of college girls came in later, apparently of another variety. They tried on a slew of fashionable clothes, only to cry in disgust that they looked like a tramp or that their boobs didn’t stay in the shirt. They left empty handed.

Al l the while I sat in the corner changing room, sitting on the short bench, with my knees curled up to my chin so no one would see my feet and they’d assume the room was empty.