Dress Shopping
I thought I had abandoned the girlhood woe that is hating my body--no, too strong a statement. As much as Vogue would insist upon it, I don't hate myself. Let's restart. I thought I had abandoned the girlhood woe that is a prolonged, awkward dressing room conversation between me and the me in the mirror, wearing the thing. But apparently I was wrong. I need a dress for some stuff coming up in my life. I spent the day in a flurry of them, all of which were cute, all of which fit me about as well as the glove at the OJ trial. There were gentle rose dresses and severe shifts reminiscent of the Orient, there was the perfect dress that the J.Crew model wore like God had draped it over her and called it good, there was the sweet sundress and the craaaazy print dress, the dress whose green specks looked like mold and the subtle polka dot dress. One dress two dress red dress blue dress. (Try saying that fast; it's hard.)
Now, to save the gentlemen in the audience let me suffice it to say that, well, girls, you can fill in this part of the story. Pick out dress from rack. [ ]. Put dress back. My fettering point came at Von Maur when I stepped out of changing room number 2 at the same time as two tan, 5'4, 115 pound sorority girls. Their dresses were sheer and black and classy. It made my blue sundress look like a lemonade stand uniform, and it's wearer look like a Bavarian barmaid. To make matters worse, the very top of my zipper wouldn't go. It didn't have anything to do with the dress being too tight, but it had everything to do with attracting everyone in the dressing room's attention. It went something like this.
My mom: "I can't get this closed. Barbie, come stand over here."
Lady in nursing uniform: "Sometimes if you grease it with a little soap it'll go"
My mom: "Can you hold this for me while I try to zip it?
Lady in nursing uniform: "Sure"
Zipper: .
Mom: "Yeah it's not going"
Lady in nursing uniform: "Well did it work before you had the dress on?"
My ears began to tune this out and my thoughts drifted to the recently wed Lauren Prieto telling some folk choir girls about her upcoming honeymoon. "We have to go out to dinner at night, and they're all nice places...I think I'm bringing like five dresses!"
"Mom."
"Yeah."
"Can we go get lunch?"
"Yeah."
"Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeing, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised"
7.03.2006
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6 comments:
This post is another reason why you're one of my favorite writers ever.
By the way, the glove fit OJ perfectly, just in case you were going for an analogy that meant the opposite.
This is why it's surprising they let him go.
it may have fit him perfectly but it appeared to the courtroom that it did not fit, and that's who mattered at the time
Really? Hmm, I always thought it was that it fit him perfectly, or...NO! That's right, he did some half assed job to put it on thus confusing the jury. Right.
You win.
You always do
if the glove don't fit you must acquit
I win I always do. That's why I come up here.
Brilliant entry. I spent last weekend doing the same thing, and you're right, no matter how well the dresses do or do not fit, the decision is agonizing. The whole experience is torture, and only slightly better than swimsuit shopping.
I'm pretty sure I've told you this already, but this post is phenomenal. Thank you.
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