The striped dress

We sold clothes at Street (a market) on Friday. It was their vintage themed evening and we had a lot of clothes to sell, stuff we gradually imported from Nova Scotia over the past few years.

We were open for business from 4-9, and during this time a certain green and white striped dress became the main character of the soirée.

It was a real winner, a beauty: cotton polyester mix, nice cut, bright and slightly but not too 70's. Picked it up at Value Village last summer. I would have kept it but it wasn't quite my colour. We hung it up in the front. From the start it was being admired and caressed and held up in front of different girls. Then a girl asked to try it on, and I said sure, the changing room is over there. Go straight and it'll be on the right.

Time passed; an hour passed. We had a busy spell and only gradually realized that nobody had come back with the dress. The change room was pretty far away so I couldn't see if the girl came out with it or not. We started to speculate that maybe it had been stolen, which dampened our mood. All the work to set up and be there and then some bratty punk walks off with whatever they want.

Except that...it wasn't stolen. A woman from another booth walked by, holding up the dress and yelling "Does anybody recognize this?" "Me!" I yelled waving my arm like an idiot."I do! Over here!" I ran over and retrieved it. We hung it back up.

Next a blond woman came and tried the dress. It looked good; it seemed to be made for her. She went to the change room to have a better look. She was gone a long time and then her friend came back and returned it to us. We hung it back up and then another girl asked if she could put it on hold for an hour. Having never sold clothes at a market before, we foolishly said yes. (Now we know that 20 minutes would be more reasonable.) Just after that the blond girl came rushing back and asked where the dress was. I told her we had just put it on hold and she was really disappointed because she had kids with her and couldn't wait an hour but she had decided she really wanted the dress. She sighed and said she might be back and wandered off.

"That dress is nothing but trouble," I said. "Nothing but trouble, " agreed Per.

An hour passed, and the hold girl didn't come back. In the end the blond girl came back. She was thrilled to see the dress still there, and bought it. Which seemed like the proper fate of the dress. And here my knowledge of the history of the green and white striped dress ends.