May 8
This is not a new photograph, but really, it's me, so you get the idea.
I shopped today, perhaps the most hateful of all shopping excursions for women, looking for a bathing suit (and right there, I am being sexist. I have no idea whether or not shopping for swim trunks [or those nasty little Speedos, there just for you, guy with the Greg Louganis body] is a daunting and horrible experience. Is it? Or is what I'm always reading about guys true? Are you really oblivious to how you look? Do you really think little spring break tight body chicks want you, Minivan Dad with the combover, beer belly and hairy, blindingly white chest?)
I have been looking for a suit for a few weeks now because last month sometime I booked a trip to Cancun for Nick and I, next month. I can't believe I haven't mentioned it before now. I mean, I've thought of it almost constantly, but just couldn't think of a way to work it into an entry ("My rabbit died, but I'm going to Cancun! Ole!"), so I mean, I've spoken about it to friends and stuff in nauseating detail, but just not here. The trip is a gift--a combination birthday and anniversary, and it's extremely nice of me, but at the same time utterly self serving. My first thought about a trip was "well, how about Boston or Philadephia?!" which is okay and all, but then, it struck me: a vacation that I am able to drive to is not really a vacation at all, so, long story short, Cancun it is.
If you'll recall, it was absolutely beautiful when I went with my mom last year and it was swell. Most importantly, I didn't have to learn anything beyond the dollars to pesos rate, which is the prerequisite for me having a bang up time. No learning on vacation. It's a credo by which I live my life. You should, too.
Anyhow, I started looking at swimsuits online before I ventured out to the stores for one. Some back story: last year, before the Cancun trip, I decided the self same thing about needing a bathing suit. We have a place sort of near my house called, coyly enough, Swimsuit Factory. One would assume by the name that you'd go in and be greeted with thousands upon thousands of rows of inexpensive suits waiting to be sadly tried on. I'd been there before, so I knew better: the thousands upon thousands part is most certainly right, but inexpensive, not at all. I don't know how many of you out there are aware of this fact, so I'm here to illuminate you: bathing suits are a ripoff. Seriously. They are. For most one piece suits, you are looking at anywhere from 50 to 120 dollars. ONE HUNDRED TWENTY DOLLARS, folks. For a BATHING SUIT. Something I'm going to put on and be aghast about for the entire duration of its being worn.
Right. So, there I was last year, April 2001, in the Swimsuit Factory, pouring obsessively over suits. It was at this time I learned a sad and unexplainable thing. What is the sad and unexplainable thing? Why, it's the phenomenon of swimsuits WITH SKIRTS for fat chicks. Let's say, for argument's sake that you are a fat chick (please note: if I did not consider myself to be a fat chick, I would not be sharing the fact that the size of suit I am forced to shop around for is large enough to warrant a skirt, in some manufacturer's opinion). You are a fat chick with a GIANT ASS and you see the skirted swimsuit hanging from the rack. "Wow!!!!" you think to yourself, "No one will notice that I have a GIANT ASS when I slip into this skirted swimsuit! The skirt will camoflauge my GIANT ASS, and people will think I'm but a wee slip of a girl!"
It is my job as a consumer and a beach goer (and owner of a GIANT ASS) to smash this misconception, right here, right now. That skirt does NOT make the ass look smaller. No no! It makes the ass look like a great big ass with a tiny bit of gently pleated, shiny lycra/nylon blend stretched around it like a tablecloth. Women wearing the skirted suit are not tricking people into thinking that they have a smaller ass. What they are doing, in fact, is pointing a big ol' neon sign to their rear, a sign that screams "I HAVE A GREAT BIG ASS!!!"
April 2001, I did not buy myself a skirted swimsuit, even if they (you know, THEM.) want me to. Nope. I know better. I grabbed a handful of things to try on and went to the fitting rooms to do battle. First, the experience of trying on with your underwear on (unless, of course, they give you the disposable paper bikini underwear, which they do at the Swimsuit Factory)is something not to be missed. A bathingsuit looks lovely with your old, stinky stained purple satin underpants sticking out from the legs. Then, there's the whole matter of you standing there, practically MORE THAN NAKED in this suit that is not yours, alone under the unforgiving fluorescent lights and in front of the mirror. It is you and the suit. Mano a mano. Alone. All around you, you hear the laughter and happy squeals of 18 year olds getting ready for their trip to Daytona Beach. "Missy! Missy! Oh my god, this suit is WAY TOO BIG in the butt, can you go fetch me the size 2 bottoms, and the 38D top??!"
You stare at yourself with murder in your heart for all of those around you, thinking: "Well, this one doesn't make my boobs look too squashy, also, it doesn't look like it'll ride up my ass, so it's okay." "Ugh, THIS one is terrible. Woah, did I always have that layers of flab?" "Wow, is that a hair growing out of my nose? Argh! This suit would require a Brazilian bikini wax, no thanks.."
It's not "Whee! this one's cute and I look perky and long limbed! I'll bet guys dig me in THIS hot little number!" It's "Which one is the least horrible?! Which will not frighten the indigenous children?". I found a suit that I believed would satisfy those requirements, with only a minor period of doubt over the, um, adornments, and I bought it (for NINTY DOLLARS!! $90.00) and wore it in Mexico, and while I never felt that people were guffawing as I walked by, I did notice that the extremely jolly activity coordinators from the hotel never seemed to want me to be included in their booze pool volleyball. They never asked me to ride on the big yellow banana. I reasoned to myself that it was because I wear a wedding ring, certainly NOT because of how I looked in my bathing suit.
So, that's the story of my bathing suit of last year (I'm trying to switch between "swimsuit" "Bathing suit" and just plain "suit" to keep you all entertained. If I knew a different word for it, I'd happily use it here, because I'm actually kind of sick of typing it). Again, I find myself in the same boat, because I kind of vowed that I wouldn't bring the one (you know what I mean, please don't make me type it) I brought last year, since Nick and I are going to the same place. What if they remember and it keeps me from being invited to join in the conga line?! (the fact that I'm not even remotely interested in mingling with the other guests is utterly besides the point, as you know. Everyone wants the option to TURN DOWN retarded invitations to do retarded things with squealing midwestern girls with stiff bangs and their fat neck boyfriends).
I will close this entry with the happy news that today I was able to find myself not ONE, but TWO perfectly fine..uhh... water costumes, at the monster bargain of $19.99 a piece. Sure, they're probably from 9 seasons ago, but really, how could it be worse than last year's?
(heh, you didn't think I wouldn't show you, did you?)
Now, it may not look so bad in this photograph. In fact, it looks kind of innocent to me, too, but those beaded things (which are not clumped together like that in reality)? I was never able to shake the feeling that I needed to start calling for my cabana boy to spread lotion on my back and bring me a new bloody mary. I felt that long, glittery nails and huge nested hair could not be much further behind. I'd start inviting people over to my place to nosh and dish. I'd know the gossip about Mrs. Glatt's hernia operation, and I'd be too forthcoming with the details of how my husband Morty and I had to bail our son, Morty Junior, the mensch, out of a bad relationship with that shiksa girl, oy vey, again. Knock wood, he'll find a nice Jewish girl to settle down with. You know, I'm getting a little vashnukad, here. Go fix me another drink, bubbulah.
the other day - home - email - tomorrow