Poul and Perspective

So I took a pair of pants to get hemmed yesterday. (Thank you, Barney's Co-Op, for making nice pants that don't look like Hammer should be wearing them.) And I took them to Boystown's beloved Soon's drycleaner, which for those not familiar is a wonderful mother-daughter Asian sensation. Ms. Soon (the elder) pinned me up and then asked for my name to write out the receipt. I told her it was Paul.

"P - O - U - L?" she asked, although she had already jotted it down.

Thoroughly amused because she's just so darn adorable, I simply grinned and said, "Yes."

When confronted with poor English on the Internet from a seller whom I didn't know, I got palpably annoyed. Yet when the speaker is this petite, grandmotherly woman in front of me, I can't help but think it's somehow charming. And that accuracy is sometimes just an unnecessary nicety.

Sometimes the human element changes everything. Sometimes it's all a matter of perspective. And Poul can't wait to go pick up his new ass-hugging pants tonight--hemmed with the delicious precision that only Ms. Soon can provide.