Shopping for sandals

I went to buy sandals. I tried on one pair and then I told the young girl, “I need one size larger.”

She did not understand me. She said, “Why can you not tell me the size? Then I can just get it for you.”

I said, “I do not know the size, but I can see that I need only one size bigger.”

This sales assistant was so rude and nasty, as if it were a crime that I did not know the size. With shoes, I can say that I wear seven and a half, but with sandals, what kind of size could I tell her? I looked at the sandals, but the size was not mentioned there.

This girl was so mad that I was not telling her the size. She was insisting and insisting. God knows why, all of a sudden I had to say to Alo, “She is so thin. Perhaps if she had been a little fatter, she would have been nicer to me.” She was so thin and very nasty.

— 6 December 1997, The Bahamas