Grandma's visitation is coming up tonight and the funeral is tomorrow. It's been a long time since I bought any new dressy-type clothing, so I thought I'd get a new shirt to wear to the visitation and a new shirt to wear under the jacket I'm wearing for the funeral.
So I head to the mall. I love JC Penneys. I can usually find things I like and things that fit me properly (since I'm short, pants can be a pain in the butt to find). But, Penneys let me down. I couldn't find a thing I liked, so I headed to Younkers, Maurices, Vanity, and countless other shops with no luck. I then headed to the Dress Barn and Kohls. I did finally find two shirts that I'm not necessarily 100% crazy about, but they'll do. It was so frustrating to go shopping! It seems that the styles right now cater to the ones who are like my daughters and wear sizes 0 and 1. If you've seen me lately you KNOW I'm nowhere near either of those sizes. Here's some proof as to my problem. The attached pictures were taken with my phone camera, and are a little fuzzy, but that's because I was trying to take the quickly without anyone noticing for fear I'd get in trouble. LOL
Ok: Shirt Style #1 -
It's gathered and super fitted at the neckline, and when you have a larger chest, trust me when I say it's not pretty. Think Dolly Parton in a tube top. 
It's silky, so it clings everywhere it shouldn't and the pretty gold buckle in the middle...accentuates the middle. Isn't that just so pretty. NOT.Shirt Style #2 -
Low V neck. Not a problem...just add a cami or tank top underneath, right? WRONG. This top is so clingy that I don't know that a top would fit underneath. Plus, the bottom (below the seam) is ribbed, which means tight and unflattering if you've ever had children...or more than 3 bites at a meal. 
Shirt Style #3 -
Thought I might be getting rid of the problems with the first two shirts... No elastic or bunching. No clingy fabric. Attached shirt underneath. And no ribbing. Great right? Nope. First, the wild zig-zag pattern made me look like a big screen tv gone haywire. 
The black belt that is suppposed to minimize the waist, only helps if it actually works, and it doesn't. The other problem with this top is that it is longer, which I know is in style right now, and great if you're not the size of a tree stump like I am. It makes me look like I did when younger and I played dress-up in mommys clothes, only it was cute then.
Shirt Style #4 -
Yea, I know, I know, you can see the problem right off the bat with this one can't you. Can you say MATERNITY? 
I kept checking to be sure I wasn't in the maternity dept. I knew it might not be good trying one of these on, and man were my instincts right on target. Yowsers! Although the ornery part of me giggled at what fun it would be for me to watch peoples eyes and hear their gasps if I went to the visitation in this. You know they'd all be thinking "She's having a baby at her age?" LOL While I knew Grandma would find the humor in it, I decided against risking anyone passing out.
Shirt Style #5 - 
Reminiscent of the Jackie O coats. They are so cute, they really are, so I tried one on. Do you know where these hit? Right at the belly button. Do you know what that looks like on someone like me? 
The only thing worse is if I were to try to put on one of my girls' XS baby doll tees.
As I continued on in this endless jungle of inappropriate outfits, I found myself giggling as I'd try them on. Some tops I'd get on and then struggle to get out of them. I actually laughed out loud a few times and then giggled more as I thought of store clerks and customers wondering what I was doing that had me laughing.
For a moment, I felt bad. I was thinking "Girl, pull it together. You are shopping for a somber occasion, not a party. Suck it up." But then I thought about Grandma. I knew that if she was right there with me, she'd be laughing along with me. We'd both be in tears from laughing so hard. Grandma had an awesome sense of humor and loved to laugh. I'm the same way and I'd like to think I got that from her.
So, God in his wisdom, helped me make a sad situation better by finding the humor to help me feel better. And I thank him for that.
Later I took Chelsea with me when I went to Kohls, thinking an extra set of eyes would help. She was no help...we were both too busy laughing. She realized my dilemma and decided to help by picking out the ugliest things she could find. There were blue pants with giant white flowers all over them, a tan dress with giant bumble bees, things like that. 
I finally selected a couple of shirts, and then said I needed a new bra and might as well get one while I was there. Chelsea would either pull out ones that would fit a 6yr old, or ones that would fit on the front of my car.
While bra shopping, I saw these control top panties and knew that was a disaster in the making (re-read my post on panty hose if you're not sure what I mean), but did like the idea of "holding things in" so I considered choosing a one piece thing, although spending 20 min to take it all off just so I could go to the bathroom didn't interest me.
Chelsea, who also uses humor to help her through situations, and I started coming up with all kinds of comical scenarios if I were to buy one of those sucker-uppers, or sucker-inners:
Chelsea: Uh, excuse me...don't mind the lady with the red face. She just can't breathe because her underwear is too tight.
Dena: Ok, I feel faint. Somebody grab some scissors and cut me outta these things.
Chelsea: She's walking like a zombie because she can't bend over.
Yep...trying on control top under-garments was almost more than either I, Chelsea, or even Grandma could take.
1 comment:
I laughed so hard!! Thanks! I needed that! =)
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