Alterations Men Women Children. Really?

It’s a Sign. Of something.

Every week on my way home from the supermarket I drive by an unpretentious dry cleaning establishment. It offers same day service. On the side of the building there is a startling banner which proclaims: Alterations Men Women Children.

It’s not so much the punctuation issue, although that probably is an issue. You know – the difference between “Let’s eat, Grandma,” and “Let’s eat Grandma.”

It’s the idea one could alter oneself overnight which fascinates me. How convenient.

In one day you could have better eyesight and shinier teeth. You could be taller, shorter, wider, narrower. And the changes would be temporary too, since you could go back the next day and reverse them.

I would like to try out being tall, for instance, although I might like to return to my original height once I had bumped my head too many times.

It might be fun to have wings. Or to be able to jump like a kangaroo. Or to have a tail to hold that extra bag of groceries or to swing from one library stack to another. Clothes might be a problem but the dry cleaner probably offers alterations on clothing too.

But why stop at physical alterations?

I’d love to be better at accounting, for instance. I’m not good at drawing either, but the tailor could alter that. I’d love to speak the world’s languages fluently, to be able to dance like a professional, to throw a baseball one hundred miles an hour. Or to be able to swim like a seal and catch fish in my mouth. Well, maybe not the fish part.

And then there are less positive attributes, like laziness or unwarranted melancholy. I could use an alteration in my mood some days and in my self-discipline on others. Some days, both at once.

But truthfully, even if the drycleaner’s sign was accurate, I wouldn’t take advantage of it. It’s not that I don’t want to change and grow. I do.

But I want to be the agent of that change myself. Being the alterations mistress of me is a lot more fun than having someone else do it. Even if that means I can’t have wings or a tail.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. Wednesday is generally book review day. Unless it isn’t. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.