NOTHING TO WEAR....

Nothing to wear but clothes

To keep one from going nude.

     -- Benjamin Franklin King

I give up.

          I’ve spent lots of time lately dashing about town, checking out different clothing stores, trying to find a good blouse I can wear to an upcoming graduation. (In this part of the country, everyone needs at least one outfit for cookouts, a second for funerals, a third for weddings, and a fourth for those events that are a couple of notches above the first, yet a peg below the last).

For years, I’ve been comfortable in my clothes; everything fit well, everything moved when I moved; everything moved with me.

But something has happened.

Now, clothes cling to me like food wrap. Everything is tight through the shoulders, the chest, the midriff, the hip; everything binds and outlines.  

Everything now has, I have learned, what we call “a more feminine fit.”

         

Spare me!

I thought I’d found it: A classic white pure cotton number that was beautiful to look at and could easily be dressed up and/or down for those “in between” events.

          A sales associate led me to the dressing room.

At first glance in the mirror, it looked wonderful.

But when I raised my arms and lowered them again, the front of the blouse stayed up, riding high between my breasts and my chin like the front of a westward-bound Conestoga wagon.

I came out of the cubicle and turned to the sales associate, who looked to be about twelve years old.

“Yikes,” I said, raising my arms again.  “This is too small!”

          “No, it’s not,” she contradicted, reaching out and pulling the blouse down for me. “See?”

          I raised my arms again, lowered them: Again, the blouse billowed high up over my breasts.

          “Too small,” I repeated.

          “It’s fine.” She reached forward, pulled it down for me again.

          “Why does it stick like that?” I asked.

          “Well,” she chirped, “it’s a more feminine fit. You want to show off your cute curves.”

          I looked at her, astonished. “Mywhat?” I asked.

          “Your cute curves,” she repeated, a little less brightly this time.

I tried one last time – arms up, arms down – and looked at myself in the mirror.

Three of us in a line, I thought, would look like a wagon train.

And I turned back to her.

“I’m sixty-six years old,” I snarled, “and I’m not interested in showing off my curves – cute or otherwise.”

         

She wisely backed out of the dressing room and disappeared.