I love our tailor.

Since the incident of the shower curtain, Jonathan and I have become regulars at the tailor's. Jonathan had some pants hemmed, we had our table cloth adjusted... okay, I know we could just get a sewing machine, but I don't want to spend that much money on something we wouldn't be able to plug in once we got back to the states. Besides, I'm not THAT great a seamstress, and our projects keep getting more complex. Recently we ordered some pants online that arrived sort of ill-fitting. Pants here are expensive, tend to have all sorts of "decorative" hideous excess stitching on them, and since women here don't have hips, they also don't fit; so, we've been ordering things on line. Of course that means that occassionally they don't fit either, but man, they took weeks to get here, I'm not sending them back. Hence, with the arrival this week of too-big pants for both of us, we took another trip to the tailor today.

We arrived and the place was pretty busy- or so it seemed. A large woman in a red suit was in one of the dressing rooms, chatting away with someone else. We assumed she was discussing the fit of her suit with an employee, and patiently waited. After maybe 10 minutes, a woman at a desk asked us why we were there. "Um, to get some pants tailored," we said. "Go talk to the lady in brown, over there." So we walked over, translated as best we could the situation, and she sent me into the dressing room with my pants. Without my even having to tell her (thank god), she busied herself pinning them in all the right places.

After I changed, Jonathan went in for his turn, and suddenly there was a confrontation between the woman in the red suit and the tailor. I had NO idea what was going on, but there was actual YELLING. When Jonathan opened his dressing room door, the tailor pinned him up, all the while yelling at the woman in the red suit. Another customer, waiting in line, kept looking at me with pity, and finally said something (I think, by hand motions) to the red suit woman about shutting up because she was giving her a headache.

When Jonathan finished, we took our slips and left to get a coffee. Jonathan was sort of giggling to himself.

"So.... what was THAT all about?" I asked.

According to Jonathan's translations, here's what went down:

When we arrived, the woman in the red suit was not discussing her fit with an employee; she was talking about total nothingness with a friend. When the tailor started helping me with my pants, red-suit-woman FREAKED OUT and starting yelling about how she was there first. "Sure you were," said the tailor, "but you stood around talking with your friend for 45 minutes!!"

"So what? You're going to serve some FOREIGNERS before me??"

"Cripes, calm down, let me help you then."

"No. Why don't you go ahead and finish with the FOREIGNERS first."

"Well, then how about you take your business elsewhere."

"EXCUSE ME???"

"I SAID YOU CAN LEAVE!!!"

After this, much bitching and dirty looks at me by red-suit-woman ensued, but she refused to leave. She continued griping at the top of her lungs while the tailor finished with Jonathan, finally shutting up when asked by the other customer, but still didn't leave. Jonathan said she was basically saying the Russian equivalent of "Oh no you dinnent!!" :D

So. Not only do we have a tailor who does a great job on our stuff at a good price, she'll also go toe-to-toe with prejudiced bitches. Now THAT'S someone worth giving our business too. :)