DRESSES AND LUCKY ARGYLE SOCKS

I hate shopping.  No, I mean it: I HATE CLOTHES SHOPPING.  Actually, I hate shopping for pants most of all.  It's more than the fact that I look like an idiot in pretty much everything; I find absolutely zero satisfaction from wasting time shopping.  To me shopping is one giant time-suck.

I do, however, enjoy having fun.

My sister and I have been at a long meeting -- she attends the meeting while I sit far away in a different room reading.  This sounds unexciting to most people, but to us it is triple excitement: 1 = she gets to laugh and talk about music projects with her fellow board members; 2 = it forces me to sit still for a couple of hours and concentrate on reading and relaxing, which I won't do unless I schedule it; and 3 = we get to spend time together.

On the way home, we toss around the idea of going to the mall.  The mall?  For someone like me who abhors shopping?

We both have a couple of special occasions approaching, not too near in the future so no pressure, and we toss around different ideas about colors, styles, dress lengths, necklines, degree of dressiness, and more.  Since there really is no time-crunch to "buy or be naked," this cannot really be considered shopping.

To us, this is the adult version of dress up.  Yes, we go to the mall.

Once inside the mall, we make beelines to high-end shops and proceed directly to the fanciest dresses the store has to offer.  This isn't as easy as it sounds since we must avoid prom displays and prom shoppers.  It's not like we fit into junior sizes anyway, but - damn - these girls and their mommas are EVERYWHERE.  We also run into two brides buying gowns, some bridesmaids, and several mothers of the brides/grooms.

In other words, we are surrounded by serious shoppers.

We start the game.  The object is to pick at least five items: one for color, one for style, one long gown, one totally outrageous dress that we wouldn't truly consider even if threatened with bodily harm for refusal, and one wild card of anything.  The semi-realistic target of it all is to find one color and/or one style that might possibly become a realistic contender when the real dress search begins in earnest.

The last rule is not to limit ourselves to one store.  Instead, we target three.  This means we have a minimum of fifteen dresses a piece to play the game.

Some of our choices are semi-serious.  For instance, even though the style is outrageously wrong, I need to try on the bright violet dress because I don't own anything that color and have no idea how it will look.  Color is a contender; style is horrifying.  Another dress has flowers on it and is light, airy, almost flouncy.  Once it is on, I start shaking the skirt bottom back and forth while kicking my legs and repeatedly chanting, "Rah, rah, sis-boom-BAH!"  The long midnight blue dress, however, stops me in my tracks.  I'll never buy it, and it's both too fancy and too heavy.  But, the color works, even with my pale, mid-winter skin tone.

My sister is having about the same luck.  I know this because we share a dressing room in each of the stores.  Part of the reason we do this is to laugh and to share and enjoy the dress-up experience.  Another part is because the lines to get into the dressing rooms are about twenty people deep with a wait-time of over fifteen minutes.  My sister thinks she is going for a muted pale rose color, but the ice blue lace overlay looks spectacular.  The bronze colored dress washes her out, but the square neckline is ultra flattering.

Probably the best moment is the gold dress moment.  I pick out an incredibly tacky and ridiculously heavy gold sequined off-the-shoulder dress with large trumpet-style sleeves that each weighs about the same as carrying watermelons on my arms.  My boobs look fabulous, but the dress clashes badly with my green argyle St. Patrick's Day knee socks.

My sister and I laugh until we have to abandon the dressing rooms in search of bathrooms lest we pee our pants.  It's a lot like being kids again, only this time we don't even have to put the dresses away as there are store clerks everywhere vying to make sales.

Sorry, ladies, but we're not in it for the money today.  That would be too much like torture.  Today we're in it for the fun.  And the colors.  And the necklines.  And the styles.  And the giggles we get from the people in line and in dressing stalls next to us as our running commentary is shockingly self-deprecating, cutting, and comedic.

We don't care what we say or how we feel or what our bellies or hips or butts or arms look like.  Today minor saddlebags and other flaws are not cringe-worthy; they are hilarious and fodder for tacky dresses no one should be buying nor wearing, anyway.

Besides, it's our fun day.  After all, I AM wearing the lucky argyle socks.