You know you’re not awake when
you butter your toast… with the butter knife’s handle and not the blade

you know you’re not awake when
rockstar brother calls from california, starts speaking… and you promptly hang up on him for no reason

you know you’re not awake when
in an attempt to crack your boiled egg, you slam it your plate… right into the huge mound of steaming sausage gravy

So that has been a brief recollection of my morning thus far. Am slowly waking up, and have come to the conclusion that I need to sleep more… and I need to avoid steaming mounds of sausage gravy.

That is all.

In other news, my sister Spank is getting hitched in a few weeks. I’m to be the M.O.H. (Mad Old Hippo - just kidding, Maid of Honor of course!) And my first task as M.O.H. was to buy a fabulous dress. As sis let me decide what color/type of gown to adorn, I had the “chore” of going on a hard core, full out, wind-in-your-hair, shopping frenzy.

Warning: what you are about to read is the true account of the mind boggling, booty baring events that conspired this past Friday during Shopapalooza 2003.

This past friday I tried on pink dresses. I tried on green dresses. I tried navy, baby blue and lavendar dresses. I tried on dresses made of satin, chiffon, organza, and polyester. Some of the dresses had beadwork, others had silk flower lapels. Most had zippers, but the one I finally bought you just slink into.

After calling Maaa several times to consult and driving my two co-shoppers batty, I finally decided on my M.O.H. dress extraordinaire. I call it “zebra chic.” I guess you can say there was a bond from the very beginning…

When I first saw the gown, I became enchanted. I lovingly fondled it’s ruffly hem lines and heavily draped neckline. With “So this is love” playing in my head I plucked the frock from it’s rack and swooned.

With bedroom eyes, I examined the black and white pattern. I thought this dress could be *the one,* but like sandals and sandwhiches, I knew I had to try it out first.

As previously mentioned, Zebra Chic has no zippers. The only way to don the gown is by pulling it over your head and adjusting, which is what I did. And it was love at first sight.

When it came time for me to free myself from this garb, so as to purchase it, I found I had a problem. And so began mission impossible.

I first tried to remove the dress in the manner I had donned it in the first place, by pulling it over my head. There was just one hitch: I’m extremely claustraphobic, so every time I saw cloth in front of my face I panicked in the manner of quasimoto at the hands of angry villagers - at one flailing desperate point I actually called out I am not an animal!

Eventually, with assistance, I was able to free myself from the oppression of the garb. Like a silly git I decided the problem was the dress size, and so I needed to try this dress on again, but in one size up.

Zebra Chic looked just as hot the second time, and predictably, was just as difficult to get out of. Again, I had to seek assistance. This time I wasn’t wearing a bra, so when my friend Laura came into the dressing room she got to see more than she had bargained for.

So heres how it went: after getting stuck in the same dress twice, Laura enters, sees the fun bags, averts her eyes, and asks me to bend over. While bent at 90 degrees the skirt goes over my head and tush is exposed. (Note: i was *not* wearing cute undies, but rather granny-looking things in a neutral color.) Laura tugs. I grunt. Laura tugs some more. I curse the dress.

And finally, i’m free enough to where Laura can make her exit before the glorious grand finale, wherein I actually get the dress off and am standing, exhausted, in my granny skivies. However, in order for Laura to make her o’hasty exit, she swings wide the dressing room door. As am hunched over with heavy black fabric obscuring my vision, all I can tell is that that door has been opened, I am exposed, and people are giggling (likely at the granny tush.)

Regardless, at some point I actually made it out of the dressing room and purchased the precious. Yeah, it’s a little crazy, considering I can’t even get out of the thing without someone else giving it a good tug, but this dress is not about freedom, it’s about fashion.

And at the end of the day, when you’re stuck in a hot looking dress, you realize that all is fair in love and ladie’s wear.

Posted in Friends, The Classics