As my last post was so sumptuous to even garner fan mail, I would like to continue my count down of superlatives with today's entry, Most Horrendous Work Moment.

I work at basically a small REI (outdoor sporting good store), which is to say that I work at an upscale yuppie shop in China. As a result most of our customers are newly rich Chinese, who think it's exciting to pay 3000 kuai for rain resistant pants when 70 would work at the clothes market down the street. Most customers are 30 to 40 years old.

On this ill fated day, a forty something woman came to our shop looking for, none the less, pants. Our other workers were occupied (amazing in itself), so I found a pair for this relatively big Chinese woman. Not fat, just fat by Chinese standards. She donned the pants, marched out of the changing room to the mirror and took a good look. Then she asked the dreaded question, "Does my butt look big??"

I panicked. Reply too fast and it means I've already looked at her butt. Take too long, it means I'm thinking. Say it doesn't and her husband is 10 feet away. Say it's big and her husband is still ten feet away. All of this blew through my mind before suavely saying,' Uhh, looks okay to me."

She didn't buy the pants.