Pleasingly, after the great debacle of the splitting of my one and only karate gi pants at the worst possible financial moment, I’ve managed to secure a replacement gi in a pretty short space of time – and at an absolute bargain price to boot!
Although I pushed my ripped pants into one or two more practices at the cost of my dignity, the fact of the matter was that it was beyond repair and was now showing off far too much of my tighty whiteys to be of any further use.
Now of course securing karate supplies in Gordon’s Bay is not a particularly easy task and so I didn’t have too much choice outside of the usual suspects of Sportsman Warehouse and Mr Price Sport down at Somerset Mall.
My first stop was Sportsman Warehouse, where unfortunately the biggest size they had in stock happened to be a 5 (Karate gi’s have a horrible sizing system in case you’re wondering. Nothing standard here I’m afraid). Although desperate and keen to give it a try, the fact of the matter was that I couldn’t pull the pants up beyond the middle of my thighs, and so with a big sad sigh, I abandoned the snug looking 5 and left, dejected.
Mr Price Sport was next, and the initial look wasn’t great. Lots of kids’ gi’s ranging from sizes 000 to 3, so no luck there. However, my eye then spotted some packaging sticking out from under the shelves. Grabbing at them, rather hopefully I’ll admit, I was thrilled to the core when out came two packets bearing a a great big 7 on them.
Ah ha, success!
Well more or less. Size 6 is what I’m actually looking for but at this point I’ll take what I can get. A quick trip to the dressing rom confirmed that I technically swim in these oversized gi’s, but nothing a trip to mom and her sewing equipment can’t fix I’m sure!
But that wasn’t the best part of my find. Oh no. The best part was by far the price on what is rather obviously old stock which the store simply can’t get rid of. At the top of a multitude of price stickers, one over the other, sat a bright orange sticker exclaiming its price to the world – R59!
R59 for a suit that usually costs between R300 and R400? Damn it, I’ll take 2 please!! :)
(Which I did by the way. And yes, I do look a little funny in these oversized threads! :P)