So I had to buy two suits for work because I have two suit-wearing functions, with the same people, two days in a row. I have never really owned a suit before. I have one really cheap "suit" from H&M which is the wrong size. It consists of super low rise pants that are too big for me and constantly slide off my ass and an ill fitting jacket that just looks. . .off. I knew that Macy's offered a free personal shopping service and had been patiently waiting for the Center City store to open so I could take advantage of it.

I find clothes shopping to be a near traumatic experience. I consistently buy clothes in the wrong size. When I was growing up, I wore crazy outfits in all the wrong sizes, compiled from homemade and second-hand sources and sometimes the J.C. Penney catalog. In college, I had a uniform — spring: jeans, dark t-shirt; summer: cargo shorts, dark t-shirt; fall: jeans, dark t-shirt, hoodie; winter: jeans, dark turtleneck. I actually came really close to getting on What Not to Wear, thanks to the tenacious efforts of my best friend. For the past few years, primarily shopping at outlet stores, I have managed to get by with a semi-appropriate work wardrobe, although I usually have to repeat outfits a couple times in a week. I have actually gotten a lot better at dressing myself. People who knew me a few years ago always remark that I have lost so much weight, but I haven't — I just no longer wear ribbed cotton turtlenecks and two-sizes-too-big jeans that make me look like a total blobosaurous. However, I have not gotten any better at shopping and I still find it to be an terrible experience that ends in either tears, returns, or something sitting in my closet, never to be worn again.

Enter Laurie at Macy's by Appointment. I call her up, tell her my story and she arranges to meet with me the next day. When I arrive, there is a private dressing room, which is like three times the size of a normal dressing room, with two suits, a bunch of shirts and a skirt hanging. One of the suits is on a super sale and Laurie explains to me that she thinks I can get away with buying the cheaper suit and pairing it with a skirt to make it look like two different suits. This turns out to be so much less expensive than I had thought so I am able to buy other shirts to pair with the suit. I'm not sure about the suit, because I think suits are stupid but Laurie explains how everything is supposed to fit. The suit is a little too long in both the arms and the legs so Laurie gets the alterations person to come down to fix things. My second pair of pants is too big in the waist, but fits perfectly through the thigh, because like most women I am about 50 different sizes. I pretty much have size 12 boobs, a size 6 waist, a size 8 ass and size 10 thighs, combined with a long torso and legs that are about a half inch too long to be petite. These dress pants are size 10, and both Laurie and the alterations woman think that the size 8 version is too tight in the thigh. So I get the waist of the 10's taken in and the length shortened and voila! I am the proud owner of perfectly tailored pants. These are the kind of things I can't figure out for myself. Skirts are the only item I end up buying too small, because I want them to fit my waist, which makes them too tight on my thighs. Now I know. Throughout the whole process, which took about an hour, Laurie kept running out to the floor to bring back different sizes and styles of things. I didn't even have to look at all the stuff on the floor, which I find overwhelming.

The best part was that Laurie wrote down the items that I wanted but couldn't get and said she will call me if they go on sale. She was very conscious of the fact that I needed the cheaper versions of things and never pressured me to buy anything. I don't know what the proper etiquette is to thank free personal shoppers who work for big corporations except to reccommend Laurie and this service to everyone in Philadelphia. This was, by far, the best shopping experience I have had in my life. Thanks, Laurie. Thanks, Macy's.