Foot in mouth disease

I'm generally careful, but sometimes I slip up ... and this time, it all started with some lovely knit fabric.

The other day, I stopped by one of my favourite fabric shops in Chinatown (People's Park), Thye Guan Textile. Henry and his wife Lay Keow had some pretty new cotton jersey fabric and I was ooh-ing and ahh-ing over them before finally settling on just one metre of a black and white rose-ish print (SGD$13) .

Now, I must've spent a good half hour just petting the fabric and looking at this and that. But not once did I feel pressured to buy anything. In fact, Lay Keow kept on smiling and chatting about all sorts of other things and didn't seem to mind that after all that time, all I bought was one measily metre.

So I told her (that's Lay Keow in the pic on the left, standing at my favourite knits corner) that I really appreciated their no-pressure atmosphere. And seriously, there is never any pressure to buy anything. Henry and Lay Keow happily show you their fabric or leave you alone to browse if you prefer.

And I should have left it at that, but was feeling wicked that day and complained about another store around the corner which also had pretty knits but whose high-pressure sales tactics I didn't like.

"No" is never enough for the other store. The response to my "no, not today" is always "Why? Buy today!".

So anyway, Lay Keow just smiled and nodded. And I CONTINUED TO COMPLAIN, telling her about what happened the last time I was at the other store, blah, blah, blah, whinge, whinge .... No big deal right?

WELL.
It turns out that the shop I was complaining about belongs to Henry's brother. So in effect, I was complaining to Lay Keow about her in-laws.

Talk about opening one's mouth and shoving both feet in! She took it all in good spirit, though, and said that the older man at that shop is "a character". Of course I apologised profusely and wished that a huge hole would open up and swallow me up ..... aaaaaaaahhhh! So embarassing.

Lesson learned!

Anyway, here's important info on Thye Guan Textile:
Address -Blk 32 New Market Road, #02-1006 People's Park
Opening hrs - 11.30am to about 8pm; Closed on Sundays
Good for - Cotton lycra/cotton jersey (about SGD$13 a metre), Irish linen, cotton/linen, denim. Prices are pretty reasonable and they have quality stuff. Many of their fabrics are from Japan or Europe.