Changing rooms

I went into M&S this afternoon and came out with nothing but self-loathing. What is it with those changing rooms that means that you go in feeling normal and come out feeling like some kind of freak?

I have seen more flattering images of myself in the Hall Of Mirrors at the fair.
I looked like a deflated souffle.
A blow-torched lilo.
Shrek in a thong.

How do retailers expect to sell clothes to people who look at them under glaring light, in distorting mirrors and with the lingering smell of other people's feet? They put mirrors behind you as well, so that when you turn away in horror it is only to see the tier of bulges from another angle.

For goodness' sake, even when you put your own clothes back on, you still look awful. You wonder how you dared to walk the streets, let alone go to work, looking like that. Ten minutes in front of the mirror in a M&S changing room and any dictator - Mugabe, Hitler, Pol Pot, any of them - would be so consumed with doubt and loathing that they would come out and immediately relinquish power and retire to the remote countryside to keep chickens.

So I didn't buy anything. We've got some old paper potato sacks in the shed. I'll cut three holes in one of them and wear that instead. After all, I won't be venturing out in daylight again, will I?