Dressing Disasters

You can buy your very own heel-less shoes here.

I'm going to attend a fancy schmancy wedding this weekend, and I have to be honest here. I am SO not a fancy schmancy person.

I suppose I could be more successfully fancy schmancy if I were willing to pay big bucks to do so. I know that the fine salespersons at any of our boutiques would probably do a great job finding tasteful clothing and accessories for .... um .... a full-figured person such as myself.

But I'm cheap. Really. This is partly due to the fact that I'm not working anymore, partly because John has us on an uber-strict budget, but mostly because it's just my nature. I look at shopping not as simply an opportunity to get something, but an opportunity to get that thing as cheaply as possible. Shopping is a quest. A challenge. It's good entertainment for someone with a lot of time on their hands.

However, this time I gritted my teeth and actually purchased a dress at full price, after trying it on, and got a second opinion for this outing. Woo. I did so because I remembered the last wedding I attended a year ago, and decided to buy an outfit off a clearance rack. In an extreme discount store. Which was going out of business.

Gee, wonder why the jacket and skirt streeeeetttttcccchhhheeeeedd at least three sizes by the time the reception was over? No kidding here - I actually had to roll the waistband of the skirt over at least twice just to keep it from dropping to the floor.

Ew. Wouldn't have been pretty.

Needless to stay, I spent the entire evening with my butt anchored firmly to my chair. No dancing, no flitting around socializing, and I only allowed myself one trip to the ladies' room to re-roll my skirt and pound my head against the bathroom door berating myself for making such a poor choice in outfits.

Then there was the time that I gleefully bought a pair of shoes - on clearance, of course - that were clearly marked, as is. As is? What could be wrong? They looked perfect, and fit beautifully. I looked the shoes over and couldn't see any defects. Well, that is, I didn't notice the defects until I was sitting in a large congregation at the front of a very large church and saw that the heels of both of the shoes were crumbling away. Completely. I left an enormous pile of shredded black plastic on the floor under the pew.

I'm not exaggerating, either. Terese witnessed the whole thing.

After the service was completed, I sat in the pew deciding how I was going to leave without making it apparent that my shoes were completely disintegrated. I decided to take each shoe off, and break the remaining heel completely away so that it appeared that the shoes actually were flats. Then walked down the center aisle leaving footprints of small bits of black plastic all the way out the door.

Good grief.

It's entirely possible that this weekend wedding will bring some clothing disaster, but the dress has been worn without incident before, and I'm grabbing a pair of shoes that have been worn also. Which leaves several other opportunities for embarrassment, I'm sure.

I'll keep y'all posted.