You've got until 5pm PST tomorrow to comment on this post with your Most Embarrassing Clothing Story to enter the drawing for a $50 Gap gift card! It must be on this post and this post only!
(Meaning feel free to comment on this post, but it will not enter you in the drawing for the gift certificate.)
Reprinted from the 1998 archives of theslack.com The original piece was titled "Am I Adopted?"
My boss is having an elegant, black-tie required engagement dinner
at the end of January. Of course, this means the SlackMistress needs to
go out and purchase the required uniform: a gown. Now the SlackMistress
hates to shop as a rule, and buying a gown is all the more painful.
We stroll into the Lord and Taylor outlet confident that we'll stroll
back out with a purchase in our greedy little hands. This is one thing
I have to give my mother credit for: she knows where to buy good stuff,
cheap. We head to the back of the store and begin the easy part of the
process: picking out gowns to try on. My mother starts at the beginning
of the row.
After turning down three or four gowns, I can see we're locked in a
battle of wills. I have said the dinner is black-tie required. I think
this to be elegant, reminiscent of the charity galas I've seen
photographed in Town & Country magazine (which my mother finally
stopped subscribing to because she was sick of me asking, month after
month, looking at the glossy WASP-y families, "are you sure these
aren't my real parents?") My mother's impression of black-tie was stuck
somewhere between mother-of-the-groom dresses and "Dynasty." Being
neither Alexis Carrington nor a 50-year-old woman, you can only imagine
the arguments that ensued.
But finally! We have our loot and parade into the communal dressing
room. Women in varying stages of undress speaking at least four
different language. I rip off my clothes and my mother begins to unzip
gowns. The ones that fit are ugly. The ones that don't I attempt to
shrug off as quickly as possible.
However, mom won't give up the battle that easily.
"C'mon...c'mon..."
She tugs at the fabric of the dress. Suddenly, a woman half-clad
in a Liz Claiborne suit comes over to assist. "That's it honey! Tug
here, it'll make it!" Another woman in bra and panties looks at me
disdainfully and says to my mother and the Good Samaritan:
"You'll never fit that dress over her ass."
Suddenly the dressing room is split into two factions: The Dress Will
Fit and You've Got To Be Joking. Discussions are being had of juice
fasts and tomato soup diets, non-surgical liposuction and girdles. I
mumble something about going to the gym and eating healthy before the
big event. With one statement I've united the crowd: this will never
happen.
I slink out of the dressing room, cloaked in shame. My mother, however,
has emerged victorious. She has managed not only to embarrass her
daughter publicly but managed to look the sympathetic parents whilst
doing it. She exits the dressing room with a slap on the back and a few
nice words about putting up with her daughter's "moods."
We did manage to find a gown a few hours later. I actually like it. My
mother's already promised me full access to her Dynasty-like collection
of large gold earrings.
Oh, goody.
#Gapborntofit
