The Quest: Swimsuit Shopping in Twelve Easy–er,Thirteen or so Steps

 

Walking through the burning coals

Bare of check book and bare of soul

Take each suit from off the rack

Horizontal stripes—go back!

Searching, sorting, one by one

‘Til it seems I’ve bypassed none

With my arms piled high and full

Dragging steps lead me to the changing cubicle

 

All too soon reaching dressing room door

It seems I could delay no more

On bringing all in, the clerk does nix

So searching my pile, I take the first six

I go in, after being wished luck,

I search for some new long-lost pluck

Though my birthday suit’s no longer new—

I’m skinny dipping ‘til this search is through!

 

Here I am, the first suit’s on—

Moment of truth—conclusion forgone?

And so to the mirror my eyes turn, terrified

Yes my every flaw has just been magnified!

Who decided a bow should go right there?

Even compensating for underneath underwear…

No!   Maybe this bikini will do the trick

Except the pale yellow color makes me look sick…

 

Here, this one’s better, the top looks nice

I won’t even worry about the high price

Now for the bottom, can it be lawful

For anything to make me look this awful?

Perhaps I should try this one piece suit

Attractive…except where they placed the fruit!

How could these suits make me look worse

Than out of some strange old voodoo curse?

 

Somehow, when fully dressed, I look rather typical

Though in these suits I feel like quite a bigger gal

In the latest contender, my thighs make me shudder

No words could describe, so I must mutter

To the clerk who asks how I am doing

It’s no Wheel of Fortune—no “Ah”ing or “Ooh”ing

In another store, the clerk’s far too busy

To help me sort through a selection so large, I feel dizzy

 

Here I am, Day Three Store Seven

It hasn’t been exactly a slice of heaven

More like from the other side

With gravity’s firm hold I must abide

Tried on almost everything, almost everywhere

Starting to feel as though I no longer care

Ready to settle for, “Well, it doesn’t look too bad”

With self-esteem knocked down a tad

 

My plain, bare skin’s seeming better by the minute

Than one of these suits when I am in it

I guess I can settle for this one right here

If I don’t take one single more look in the mirror

I can live with this tankini

Then live without much more linguine…

Credit card smoking, I am out the door

Looks like I will publicly swim once more!

 

**This account based on a true story.  Jannica survived her experience, and has swum again publically after only a few therapy sessions.

 

 

 

“Life” Before (Amazon) Prime

Gather ‘round, children, for I would like to tell you a piece of our world’s history.  Life was a rough and hard thing.  There were dark, hard times.  There was once a primitive time; a time before Amazon Prime.

Only the strong survived it.

If you are feeling brave, I will share some of what it was like.  Once upon a time when you wanted something you didn’t already own, there was a long and horribly complicated process for getting it.

In these dark and dangerous times, children, you had to get dressed to shop—at least to the level of pajamas and slippers.  You could only escape this if you went to a store called “Walmart”, where you could pretty much wear anything—even things your mother wouldn’t let you out of the house in.

You would then have to get in a car or bus or walk and physically go to a building—it was called a “store”.  You would park your car or get off the bus, and go all the way in to that “store” only to walk amongst seemingly endless aisles of things they wanted to sell. Most of what they sold were things you didn’t even want to buy, and yet you had to physically walk past them, there was no back button!  Instead of a Search button, you had to read signs or ask an employee where things were, or stumble around blindly, hoping to find it.

A cart was an actual physical thing.  Instead of a nice drawing on the upper right hand corner of your screen, with the number of items listed rationally in it, there was a big metal “shopping cart” with wheels and a basket where you actually placed what you intended to buy at check out.  But there was no number in the cart to tell you how many items you had; you could have had any number of things.  There was really no way of knowing.

When you were in this “store”, you might interact with other people, where you were expected to be pleasant, or at minimum, not run over them with your heavy metal “shopping cart”.  You might even feel obligated to talk to some of them, because it was that primitive.

Once you found your item, you had to walk all the way back to the front of the store, stand in a line where potentially many people could be in front of you, pay for your item, sometimes even ringing up your own order by yourself, and then find your way home.

There was also no anticipation, children.  You had the items right away and when you arrived home, you probably still remembered what you had just bought.  No one cared.  No one opened a box with you in anticipation of what might be inside that you had ordered two days ago—as you remember only that it was something you desperately needed.

Thank goodness those days are over; your parents survived them so you won’t have to.  We can remember the pioneers without ever having to try to live that way.