Altering clothes

is not something I do. I do not have a sewing machine. I cannot thread a needle without extreme difficulty - and many muttered curses.
I am also a very short cat. If I buy trousers of any sort they invariably need to be taken up unless they are of the "capri" variety - on me those look almost long length.
In general I do not like to have to bother about clothes. I have said elsewhere that I will buy things in the local charity shop if one of the staff there tells me, "Cat, we have something that might suit you if you still want... "
But sometimes even I will buy something new. The other day a catalogue arrived. I had bought the Senior Cat a woollen cardigan from this same company a couple of years back. They still send the catalogue.  There were jeans in the catalogue. They were exactly the same sort as those I am wearing. The current pairs are getting thin at the knees and generally looking in danger of having the sort of "air conditioning" that teenagers seem to think is desirable. I don't need holes and tears in mine. Mmm....I ordered two pairs. This means that I am covered for another couple of years. They arrived and of course they need to be taken up. I put a safety pin in the relevant place and I prowled off to the dry-cleaner.
There is a lovely lady in the dry-cleaner who does alterations and repairs. She took up the previous two pairs.
I did not even need to open my mouth and miaou piteously at her. She smiled and said, "For me? You want them taken up?"
I nodded, "Yes, please."
She took them and smiled even more when she saw I had put a pin in at the correct point on one leg.
     "Easy and two pairs the same makes it even easier." She quoted me a charge much less than I was expecting. I know what she charged someone else for a similar alteration. He's a grumpy "old" man at about the age of fifty. He complained to me about the cost.
I must have looked pleased as well as surprised because she said,
    "I can knock a bit off for two the same - and you always say thank you."
This woman sits all day in a cramped spot, hunched over a sewing machine. She has to repair clothes as well as alter them. It is not a pleasant job but she does it cheerfully and well.  I want to say thank you. I expect to say thank you. Apart from paying her it is the very least I can do. It doesn't cost anything to say thank you - and this time it turned out to be cheaper.