I ran out yesterday afternoon to just kick around in a few stores.  I didn't really have anything, in particular, to buy.  I just wanted to get out and ramble a bit.  I found myself in a store with a couple of dresses in my hand and began that big debate we all have with ourselves.  Do I want to try these on here or take them home with an 89.5% chance of having to bring them right back?  I decided I'd bite the bullet and head to the fitting room.

I put the first dress on and everything was going smoothly.  It fit and I liked the way it looked on me, so I put it back on the hanger and grabbed the next one.  I put my arms up and pulled it over my head and could tell right away that it wasn't going to work for me.  You know that snug feeling you get when something just isn't going to accommodate your girth.  Kind of like a swaddled baby only not near as content.  Perhaps it would work if, say, you didn't have to inhale or exhale, but since that's preferable, you know it won't be going home with you.  It will have to continue to hang on the rack and wait for a smaller, more wispy girl to come along. 

So, anyway, I start taking it off and make it all the way up to my upper arms and then it happened.  The dress got stuck around my shoulders.  I couldn't go up with it and I couldn't go down with it.  I was trapped.  They say that the shoulders are the most difficult to expel through the birth canal during labor and I can attest that this same general rule also applies when attempting to pass through an ill-fitting dress.  Perhaps, a pair of forceps would have been a welcomed sight at this point in the story, but I digress. 

My arms were bound to my body by the dress and I couldn't do anything.  I'm familiar with the "You break it, you buy it" policy, but I wondered, as I stood in the dressing room clothed only from the shoulders up, what the standard procedure is for customers who get stuck in things.  You become lodged in it, you buy it?  If only there had been someone with me, who could've come and pulled me out.  There was a lady in the fitting room next to mine, but exposing yourself to a complete stranger from the shoulders down is generally not something that is well received. 

The temperature in the dressing room suddenly began to shoot up about 20 degrees and I started to have difficulty getting a deep breath.  Panic had set in.  I have a slight case of claustrophobia, you see.  I decided to just stop and take some slow, deep relaxation breaths before I made another attempt to escape from the dress now turned tourniquet.  It was important that I keep a sufficient oxygen level in order to maintain consciousness as I tried to imagine an attendant finding me on the floor with the dress around my head and how that whole scenario would sound on the police scanner.  I was starting to feel like the Great Houdini......only right side up and not nearly as magical or impressive. 

After regaining my composure, a couple of more attempts and a mile of stretched threads later, I did finally free myself from the situation and am still here to tell about it.  I know you're all glad of that since this is such a riveting tale.   I'm sure the wispy girl and the dress will be happy together.  I trust that she will find the seams to be good and broken in now. 


Why do I tell you this story, you ask? 

I have no idea.

But, surely, there is a moral in there somewhere that I can dig out for us all- no matter our situation.......


Amen and amen.   

Have a great Monday, people.