Elevator Drama

This story is hardly relevant to anything right now, but I just remembered it; happened a good 10 years ago or so. Enjoy.

So I had recently graduated from university and was running around applying for jobs. One of the buildings I went to was about 20 floors high, and one of the companies I was applying to was on the top floor. Went up, all formal with my suit & tie, carrying a bunch of CV's, gave one in, filled out an application form, went back to the lift, and clicked the button for the ground floor.

20..

19...

18....

*DING!*

The lift stopped, doors opened, and two construction workers stepped in. Now I don't really know how to properly describe what these two smelt like; it was a hot summer day (probably around 45 degrees or so - that's around 115 for all you Americans) and it felt like they've been working for the past 8 hours under the burning sun, sweating from every pore, and it was pretty overwhelming. Don't get me wrong; I appreciate the job they do, but goddamn that was a strong stench. It felt like someone took some warm kebabs, covered them in Hummus, left them under the bed for 3 weeks, took them back out and then took a dump on them, then sprinkled them with rotten eggs.

Luckily for me they pressed 16, so I only had to suffer the pain for two floors. It was a long ride till the 16th floor though...


18............

18.......................................................................................................................................................................................

17.......................................................................................................................................................................................

16 *DING!* and they left *HEAVY BREATHING*

Still, the smell was so strong and powerful that it had somehow stuck to the walls of the elevator. The place was still hazardous. Ok no problemo, I can probably hold my breath for another 16 floors.

15...

14...

13...

12...

*DING!*

And there, infront of me, the door opened to reveal the two most gorgeous girls I had ever seen in my life till that point. EVERYTHING about them was perfect, the hair, the eyes, their clothes, it was almost like something out of a movie. This was my lucky day.

They took one step into the lift, and then, apparently hit by the strong chemical waste scent, stopped, stepped back out and held their noses, looked at each other and giggled.

I was mortified; how on earth could I fix this? They obviously thought it was me, but I had to think fast, I had to explain, what do I say, It wasn't me? Some body went into the lift before me? Two construction workers walked in and ended up shadowing the lift with that evil scent? No? How do you even begin explaining this?!

In those few seconds from the girls stepping back out and laughing at me, till the moment the elevator door closed, I realized there was literally nothing I could say to save the situation. I just went quiet, and bowed my head down in shame.

I don't know what brought this memory back to mind, but hey, if you are a girl and remember seeing a (handsome) guy in a lift about 10 years ago, and the lift smelt bad, just know that it wasn't him. Sigh. There's a contact form at the top of this page too *ahem*

Why guys don't buy clothes.

It's been a while since i've blogged; with Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and the multitude of instant messaging tools, saying anything longer than a sentence and a half is usually overkill. Not today though, since this kind of ticks me off.

Not to sound very stereotypical, but girls in general love to shop for clothes (don't deny it, you know it's true). I won't say every single girl out there does, but for a very big handful, that's pretty true. Clothes, accessories, make up, shoes, bags (I don't understand why so many shoes or bags are needed) etc etc etc, bla bla bla.

Why don't guys (in general) buy as many clothes? I originally thought it was something in the chromosomes that make women just want to go out there and spend, but that's not it. Apparently society 'accustoms' us to not buy clothes. Have you walked into an average clothes shop recently? Have you seen how big the ladies section is as compared to the guys? It's ridiculous. You walk into the store, and it's pretty much all ladies clothes; even if I wanted to buy something, that kind of puts me off. They have 99% of the store and we have around one shelf. In the far corner. Hidden somewhere behind the ladies lingerie section which makes it even more awkward for us.

Anyway, for those of you in Bahrain, remember when City Center first opened a couple of years back? They had a huge H&M store with a sign saying "Opening Soon". Knowing H&M from UK etc, they're great for casual clothing, even for guys. And then they opened. Take a look:


That's a pretty big entrance + window. The shop inside is about three time as long and is much wider than the store-front. This was pretty much my train of thought over the two minutes after walking in:

"This place is big."

"Hmm. Girls clothes. Okay must be a guys section over there."

"Nope, ok maybe in that side."

"Oh wait I think I see it in the back."

"Oh, no, that's just the kids section. Lemme see, over there maybe?"

"Nope."

And just like that, guys were denied the pleasure of shopping at H&M. Don't get me wrong, i'm not an H&M freak or anything, but it would be nice to be given at least one shelf. Anyway..

A few months later, another store in City Center put up a big sign: "H&M Men's Opening Soon" and men all over the country rejoiced (well not really, since we don't really care much for shopping, but hey, another shop).

When H&M Men opened, I went over. From the face of it, it was a little disappointing; the entrance of the women's shop alone was about the width of our entrance & display windows combined:


Doesn't matter, at least we HAVE a shop now. Took a walk inside, and the whole thing was approximately one third the size of the women's store. Hmm. Okay won't complain.

A few months later, I walk into H&M Men and realized something looked different. Either men's fashion had become incredibly female-like, or something happened to the store. Then I realized, they decided to shrink the men section to half the store. Yup. Women already have their massive gigantic sized store but that's obviously not enough. They had to take half of ours.

Okay, FINE. We still have a reasonable selection to choose from.

But a few weeks ago, I walked into H&M Men's again. And guess what. ALL the clothes were for women. What? Where's our clothes? Then I realized. Our section was pushed all the way to the back, to occupy about a quarter of the store:


What is this, a joke?

Come on guys, there is obvious discrimination against guys buying clothes. It's not like we don't WANT to buy clothes. It's that even if we did, you make us go through miles and miles of ladies sections to actually reach our tiny little corner. I feel like I want to stand up for my rights. The right to choose whether I want more than 2 colors of the same shirt. More than the same style of jeans. Maybe I should gather up all the guys and start a protest, against all the evil shops that discriminate against us. We do represent half of society, you know. Without us you would be broke. Girls wouldn't need to dress up for us, and then when you're losing business or bankrupt, don't come over to us telling us you're going to make more guys jackets. It's too late then. It's too late.

Ah screw it. I'll just go buy another gadget.