Dear Blogger Friends,
If you have ever tried to buy a young ladies formal dress, you will understand my predicament. Modern stores simply do not carry things appropriate for anyone- let alone anyone trying to dress modestly. This is the problem we ran into when trying to find Christmas dresses for Brianna and I.
We'd struck out again one morning, when Mom had to go downtown to the optometrist. Across the street was a second-hand store. Mama suggested that I go in and look for something that might work with the Navy Blue Theme we were coordinating. I agreed to go and we went our separate ways.
As soon as I was through the door, 2 things happened. 1) I thought to myself. Boy, is this a fancy 2nd hand store! and 2) I was almost swallowed whole by an over-friendly and over-obsessed, if not
possessed, saleslady
.
"Hello, what can I help you with?" Was I willing to lay myself on the line here? This woman seemed very strange, but I figured I was already as lost as I could be.
"Yes, actually. I'm looking for something ina navy blue with or without black velvet-do you have anything like that?" She looked horrified for a moment, then in a scoffing tone replied,"Velvet is
not '
in' this season."
I was taken aback. "Oh, how about just navy blue then?" She brightened up again. "We have quite a number of blue items right now." She took me into the little room behind us, picked a dress off the rack and held it against her rather plump self to show it to me.
That dress looked as though it was meant to be worn by an abnormally tall and anorexic pencil. It was a bright blue and had in the center of the bust a diamond shape made of chunky rhinestones in varying shades of blue and white. Wrong color, cut and fit.
My response was: " I need a
dark blue, please. And do you have anything a little more
modest." The woman gave me a look like I'd just said I'm swum the Pacific ocean in an hour, and said, with an indignant air "It has a
wrap." I don't know what her idea of modest was, but we certainly were NOT on the same page here.
Kaitlin, take a deep breath and walk out. I opened my mouth to say what I really thought of the scrap of fabric masquerading as a dress. But by the time I got the first word out, she'd pulled out two more dresses. "These were designed by so-and-so"- they were names I didn't recognize, so I wasn't impressed.
Just when I thought I'd die if I had to look at one more, quite frankly, UGLY dress, I'd scream, Mama came in. I'm rescued- at least I thought I was. She swooped in on Mom and tried to get
her to buy a horrible excuse for a dress! She spouted off a long list of foreign sounding names of her designers- to deaf ears. Mom politely thanked her and before she could get in one more word, we were out the door, the saleslady hot on our heels. We stopped for a minute to catch our breath and then started for the real thrift store.
Though we didn't find what we were looking for, we had a good laugh,and left with an experience to share!!
