I Don't Speak Mandarin

As I mentioned in an earlier entry I took my walking shorts to the nearby dry cleaners to have an additional five mesh pocket panel sewn onto the front waistband, a panel of pockets that I removed from another pair of so-tight-I-would-pass-out-wearing-them-and-look-like-a-doofus-in-the-process shorts. The seamstress who had sewn the other panel of pockets perfectly on the back of the waistband wasn't there so I attempted to communicate my wishes in English to another employee who speaks English minimally. Despite my initial impression that she wasn't really grasping what I was requesting be done, she continued to nod and say enthusiastically, "Oh yes," and so I left my shorts and pockets confidently in her care. Yesterday I went to the dry cleaners to pick up my shorts. The pockets were sewn on just where I wanted them. There was just one small problem, perhaps so insignificant that I shouldn't even mention it but it seems the pockets, all five of them, were sewn onto the front of my shorts...shut.