They put fitting rooms in shops for a very good reason...

This is how the exchange probably should have occurred:

Me: Hi there, I'd like to return these pants, please.

Twelve year old assistant manager, hereafter referred to as Assman12: Certainly, may I have your receipt, please?

Me: Of course."

(Assman12 pushes a few buttons on the cash register, makes some small talk about the weather and the new spring line, gives me a new receipt.)

Assman12: Here you are, madam. I'm sorry they weren't suitable, but please come and see us again. Thank you."

Me: No, thank you. (Exit shop).

Here's how the exchange actually occurred:

(I walk into the shop, a bustling little hive of industry, and see Assman 12 behind the counter folding merchandise, another sales assistant ringing up a sale and two others discussing the mammoth snowfall of the night before with each other and a few browsing customers. I take a look through the rack of pants closest to the door then approach the counter.)

Me: Hello, I'd like to return these jeans, please. I have a receipt and I just bought them last week.

Assman12: Certainly, madam. What seems to be the problem?

Me: They don't fit properly.

Assman12: Did you not try them on in the store?

Me: No, they are the same style and size as the ones I have on but they are a mile big. (Refreshing change, incidentally, as things are usually a mile small for me.) I'd like them in a size smaller.

Assman12: Do we have any more in stock? (I assume she is asking the other staff members or just thinking out loud, but I answer anyway.)

Me: I looked but you don't seem to have any in the smaller size.

Assman12: Really?

(Assman12 steps out from behind the counter, walks past me to the rack that I have just checked, in full view of her, and riffles through them one by one.)

Assman12: Hmmm, we don't have a size smaller.

(Assman12 returns to the counter, takes a blue tape measure from around her neck and measures the pants.)

Assman12: The label says they're a size 8 but they seem to be more like a 10. (Keep in mind that this is one of those fashionable big girl shops, so with the 8/10 thing I'm taking huge liberties, but there's no bloody way in hell I'm telling you my real size. Let's just call it fiction and move on, shall we?)

(Assman12 steps back over to the rack, pulls another size 8 and measures them.

Assman12: Here, try these on. Sometimes they get labelled wrong.

(I humour her and try them on, even though I am about to be late for the evening's festivities - stuffing my trap with leftover shepherd's pie and watching The Biggest Loser. I step into the dressing room, take off my boots breaking a lace in the process, take off the old jeans, put on the new jeans which happen to be miles too big as well. I am now slightly encouraged that my arse is not quite as big as I had thought, since surely two pairs of pants can't be wrong, and pissed off at having broken the lace for nothing. And I understand that it would have eventually broken anyway, but this is not the best time. It's difficult to authoritatively demand customer satisfaction when you're dragging your foot behind you like Quasimodo, trying to keep your shoe from falling off. I fold the pants and take them to the counter where Assman12 is engrossed in a conversation about adjustable bra strap extensions with a buxom older woman whose hooters hang so low that mere adjustable bra strap extensions would almost certainly not solve the problem. But it's none of my business. I scan the shop for another sales assistant but they have all disappeared, like triple fudge brownies at a Weight Watchers meeting. I spin the earring rack and have a look while Assman12 measures the missus for a bra.)

Assman12: Did you know that seventy percent of women wear the wrong size bra?

Me: Did you know that one hundred percent of me is wearing the wrong size pants? Can I have your attention again, please? (Okay, I didn't say it, but I wanted to, and could you really blame me if I had? The second the missus steps into the fitting room I'm all over Assman12 like stink on shit before someone else gets to her. She takes my receipt, punches numbers into the cash register and hands me a new receipt.)

Me: Don't you need my credit card?

Assman12: Not for an exchange.

Me: I'm sorry. I think you misunderstood. I'd like my credit card to be reimbursed. The other jeans are too big too.

Assman12: Really? They're big too? (Again, she takes out the tape measure.) Well, these ones are two inches smaller in the waist than the other ones.

Me: I'm sure they are but they still don't fit. Can I just have my money back, please? Time is a bit of an issue unfortunately.

(Assman12 forces a smile, picks up my receipt and furiously assaults the keys on the cash register. When she finishes, she hands me another receipt.)

Assman12: Thank you. You have a great night. (It is quite clear that she doesn't mean it.)

(I leave the shop happy that I have succeeded in getting my money back and determined never to shop there again, although when your can is the size of a chevy there are few other options.)

Tonight, we hunker!

It is effing snowing again! Okay, I know that back in December I talked about how lovely the falling snow was and how festive and Christmassy I was feeling and how the weather outside was frightful but the fire was so delightful, but I am, emphatically, over it. I still love a good snowstorm but this is getting ridiculous. The weatherman said that this will be the worst storm of the season. They're predicting up to fifty centimetres of snow which is hard to imagine if you don't get much snow, but 50 cms is a buttload of snow, especially when you consider that the city has yet to move the 27 cms we got on Wednesday and the who knows how much we got last Saturday. At the end of the lot where I park my car there is a townhouse with the kitchen window looking out on to the street. The little woman who lives there with her teenagers can often be seen sitting and sipping her morning coffee and watching the world go by. Little snippets of other people's lives, even people we never speak to and don't really know, can become part of our routine. They can comfort us when our own lives occasionally spin out of control. I have not seen this woman since the end of December because the snow is piled up five feet above her window! She could be trapped under something heavy for all I know. I have to admit, it's somewhat unsettling, although curiously, not quite unsettling enough for me to walk the twenty extra steps, knock on her door and say "Hi, I'm Helen. Just popping round to make sure you're alright and not pinned under your fridge." I tell myself that the teenagers would have called 911 by now if something were amiss, and if I'm wrong and she is trapped under her fridge, there's a pretty good chance she won't answer the door when I knock.

I'm ready for the birds to return, the sunshine, the stench of dead earthworms after the rain, the eighty-three cents in loose change I will find in the street after the snow melts. I'm ready for Easter eggs and tulips and a clean car and sandals and a pedicure and pink polish on my toes. But it is quite clear that none of that will be happening any time soon. So I suppose I should just stay in my jams, make more tea, hunker down and enjoy sitting in my favourite chair, reading, while fifty centimetres of shit, crap and corruption furiously batters my living room window.