I have met some really interesting people in the 39 days that I have lived here — equally weird and wonderful people.

Some of them you have read about in my column in the Sunday Times. I have to say though, the most annoying of these random people has got to be the woman we met at Sears yesterday when we went to buy Thando’s school uniform.

If you have ever heard the word “busy-body”, she is the definition. The living, breathing, walking embodiment.

So this woman, black aunty, is a shop assistant at Sears, and I’ll admit that she was only trying to help, but geez, she was just too much. Firstly, somebody else was helping us, and then Mrs Loudmouth comes over and decides we need extra help from her.

The uniform list from Thando’s school says she needs: navy blue slacks, a jumper, skirt or skort and a powder blue blowse. So, before Mrs Loudmouth comes along we had decided on getting a skort and the pants because it will be winter soon here.

We’re looking through the hangers for the right sizes with the young lady with fake brown eyes, when I see out of the corner of my eye an older woman rushing over speaking at the top of her voice.

At that point we had the skort in our hands and a blouse. She says: “oh no, honey, that blouse is too small. And you’ll need a bigger size for that skort, your daughter has some hips on her and she has breasts.” All the while she’s grapping her own breasts and touching her own hips. “Yeah, I know she’s a child in years, but she got a woman’s body on her.”

So she starts going through the rack to find bigger sizes and tells us that, in fact, nobody wears skorts, the kids all wear pants and they wear khaki pants. “But the school said navy blue,” I protest. “My kids went to that school and they wear khaki pants and none of the girls wear skirts, best you get her pants honey. You’ll have to go upstairs to the juniors cos you ain’t gone find anything for her here, she’s a big girl. Yeah, you got a big girl.”

I can’t tell you how irritated I was that she kept repeating that Thando is a big girl because she’s not and she’s gonna make my pre-teen daughter self-conscious about her size.

I have seen huge children here, which really saddens me, and my child is not someone anyone should be calling “a big girl”. She is tall and yes, she does have boobs and hips, but she is not “big”.

I eventually decided to ignore Mrs Loudmouth and go off into the fitting rooms with Thando. Even then I could still hear her talking loudly to FDH*.

When we came out she was lounging on a sofa that the store is trying to sell, still going on loudly about this or that. So annoying.

Later, FDH would tell me that Mrs Loudmouth had told him she has ten kids. OMW! I just felt so sorry for those children. Can you imagine having a mother like that, who just can’t keep quiet?

Somebody please get that woman a muzzle. And some birth control.

*FDH = future dear hubby