Your Paranoia is Showing

I don't like clothes shopping. You may have guessed that by now. I try to avoid it if I can. I'm allergic to humiliation. There's something about walking into a store, trying to guess my size, and being completely wrong, that gives me hives.

One time, I went into a store where they give you numbers to keep track of what you try on. If you decide you don't want something, you have to give it back and they give you another number. And you can't go back out on the floor to see if there's something more appropriate, unless you don't have any numbers left.

Already uncomfortable with this system, I ventured into the change room and found that the dress didn't fit. I went back out to the guard lady in the change room, and asked quietly if it came in a larger size. She yelled out to the woman at the other end of the store "SALLY, CAN YOU GET THIS IN A LARGER SIZE???" I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole before she said anything else like "CAN YOU IMAGINE? SHE THOUGHT THIS SIZE WOULD FIT! HA HA HA! THAT'S HILARIOUS! " Needless to say, I beat a hasty retreat from that store, and haven't returned, lest they recognize my red face.

I suppose it is very common among us women to feel like our bodies are less than perfect. I am no exception. I felt renewed hope when the "What Not To Wear"show started. Through watching, I began a journey towards understanding that clothes fit different bodies in different ways. The trick is to dress for your body type and accentuate your best asset (I wear long sleeves to accentuate my lovely fingernails). Being armed with this knowledge has helped, but I still avoid shopping as much as I can, because I have to eat a lot of chocolate to recover from the experience.

I don't completely avoid clothing stores. I sometimes go with my kids, and play dress up. They are fun to dress. This last week, I went with my young son, who happened to have grown another few inches, and needed jeans that didn't rise to mid-calf when he sat down. I ran around the store finding the right sizes for him. I waited at the dressing room for him to show me the results of my finds.

At one store we went to, there was a young mom, who was trying on 'boy jeans'. She was obviously enjoying the attention of the male service clerk. She did a lot of flipping her hair at him, and making statements like "Oh, are you sure these look o.k? Really? I'm just not sure. Why do you think these look good?" "What tops would go with these?" and "So these are the size 0? These definitely fit better, because when I tried on the size 2, they just didn't fit around my hips and I could pull them right off". (Flip the hair)

I stuffed down the urge to do something I might regret. Fortunately about that time, my son emerged and we went to the til and paid for his stuff. Otherwise, it might have got ugly. All the way to the van, I mimicked her. "Yah, I know what you mean. When I tried on the size 52, they just fell off my body too." Hand me that Bridge Mix.