Words of Wisdom

Youth is wasted on the young.

Sunday 28 February 2010

Oh The Cleverness of Me*


Sometimes with teenagers you can get a 'win-win'. Here's an example.

On both the school uniforms the Baby Angel has been forced to wear, there is a rear half belt secured with two buttons. The problem is that on both uniforms the cut and style resemble something akin to a hessian sack. Teenage schoolgirls solve this problem by re-doing the half belt buttons so that the second button is secured in the first button hole, pulling the waist of the dress into a more flattering line (hem hem) and leaving the unused portion of the belt hanging down their backs like a tail. It is not a good look.

It is so much not a good look that teachers are stationed at the gate to ensure girls leave the school correctly attired, not looking like rejects from St Trinians. Somehow, the moment they breach the '500m radius from the school' barrier, the half belts spontaneously revert to their incorrect positions and mothers are left tearing their collective hair out.

And so a compromise is reached.

As it is the sack like nature of the dress which is causing the belt abomination, doting mama agrees to open the side seams and shorten the half belt so that it effectively nips the waistline in, thus reducing the need for incorrect buttoning. At the same time, and this is the clever bit, mother sews the half belt together so that there is no possible way it can be tampered with and it shall remain forever neatly and correctly buttoned.

Now to solve the 'rolling socks down and tucking them inside your shoes' problem.......
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

On the sailing front, I was spared the ordeal of sailing yesterday as the winds blew up to a not insignificant 20 knots. Today, Himself met up with a nice young woman (thanks Prof J) who has been sailing for sometime on big boats and is ready to make the move to the smaller, hands on, dinghy classes. She is 29, tall, slim and knows a tack from a jibe. I have been replaced.

The weird thing is that I feel somewhat disappointed.

* J M Barrie

Ronald Searle's St Trinian's cover

7 comments:

HipMomma said...

But when you fixed the belt did you also give the dress the slimmer waist line?

Arizaphale said...

Of course! That was the compromise. Not TOO slim mind you :-D

DanYells said...

It is not a wonder why so many teenage girls in Adelaide dress with so little fabric in their recreational time....

chaoticfamily said...

Good idea... We used to get our kilts measured - lol this one teacher would always have a ruler on hand to measure the distance from our knees to the bottom of the skirts!! ;)

Arizaphale said...

Erinne: At my current school they have to kneel down and the hem should be touching the ground :-D

Laine: I am not sure from your comment whether you approve of this 'little fabric' behaviour?? :-)...the other day the BA and I were in Supre and I swear that company must be suffering from the GFC. They have obviously decided that the best way to cut costs is to leave half the fabric out of their clothing!! One dress even had a hole at the waistline on each side. Perhaps the fabric had been damaged and they wanted to use it up? Waste not want not! hahahahahahahahahahahahha
(For those not familiar with Supre...go here)

Elisa said...

You are the clever one!!!
Well done.

As for the socks - sock glue! :)
My kids used this when Irish dancing so that their socks did not roll down while they were dancing.
Perhaps BA rollsthem down because she are tired of pulling them up when theythe socks sag on their own. This keeps them up all day! :)

Jill said...

Oh I bet my teen wishes I could sew! Hers are pleated and only the seriously stick thin, very tall girls even have a shot at pulling off a good look. But I guess that's true of a lot of clothing.

Sort of congratulations on the replacement? Insecure, jealous person that I am, I'd be hoping he spends a lot of time shouting at her. :-0