Article - Caveat Emptor

Caveat Emptor
(Let the Buyer Beware!)

You must have noticed that things in catalogues never look quite the same when they arrive. I buy mainly underpants from catalogues; not because I want them or need them. It’s simply that, in order to get the free gift when you become a catalogue agent, you have to send in your first order. My first and only order is always the cheapest possible pack of underpants. I have accumulated a number of phones, hair-driers and chip pans this way - but it leaves you with the problem of an enormous pile of unwanted underpants. Unfortunately, unlike unwanted wedding presents, they do not make ideal birthday gifts for octogenarian great aunts.

But what is more, however good they looked on the bronzed torso of the catalogue model, when you try them on the seams are uncomfortably placed; the size indication of S, M or L appears to be a wholly random designation; the original template must have been taken from an off-planet humanoid; ‘100% cotton’ means see-through and ‘polyester mixture’ means plastic bag with holes in it; and the colour-matching from the catalogue was obviously managed by a colour-blind orang-utan with a penchant for Picasso.

Which is why trying things on in a shop will always be a million times better than staring at small pictures in a book. There’s no substitute for the Real Thing.

It was GK Chesterton who remarked, not of underpants, but of Christianity: “It has not been tried and found wanting; it has not been tried.”

Woman Alive monthly column