Since the girls have come along I’ve been buying a new bathing suit every year. I have no choice. I wear them out so quickly that they practically hang in tatters at the end of the summer.
I like myself. I truly do. But that doesn’t make the shopping any easier. All I want is a suit that looks good and is as flattering as can possibly be given the circumstances. And it always proves to be much harder than I thought.
I went to Bayshore the other day and came away empty-handed. I started at the Bay. Nothing. I went to Bikini Village and a new swimwear store on the third floor. Both had a disappointing and disproportionate number of teeny bikinis. I’m way beyond that.
Whoever opens the “I’m a Real Woman Who Wants To Look Decent and Even Dare I Say Nice in a Bathing Suit” store would make a killing in this market.
I was looking for a black one-piece that looked okay on me. I quenched my despair by buying $60.00 worth of t-shirts for myself at Garage. (This is a whole other post. I was the oldest shopper in this store by about 15 years. But where else does a gal go for cool t-shirts around here?)
Okay, so I wasn’t quite empty-handed but I certainly didn’t buy the thing I came fore.
The next night I went to Carlingwood. I had the smallest shred of hope finding something here. Carlingwood is not a fashion mall. It is the mall of the Young and the Elderly, but there is a Sears and I went there on the slim chance I would find something there. Otherwise I was going to be heading downtown.
I dislike this Sears. It makes me feel totally claustrophobic and there is something kind of trashy about it. Perhaps it’s the lighting. It makes my skin look green.
But I was a woman on a mission, and I wasn’t going to let this get in the way. Alas, my heart began to sink within five minutes of finding the racks. Nothing had captured my attention. I grabbed suits just for the hell of it and tried them on.
I learned early on that bathing suits are sized differently than regular clothes. If you’re an 8 you’re likely going to need a 10 when you try on a bathing suit. Or, if you’re me and you have a long mid-section, you might need to go two sizes bigger than your usual dress size. Depressing, isn’t it? It brings me into double-digits I have never otherwise worn.
The suits I had grabbed off the racks at Sears were not working for me. By this time I had put my bra away in my purse, I was so tired of taking it off and putting it on again. I went out and did one last dejected tour of the racks. And that’s when I saw it…. a black one-piece HIDDEN between a stash of other bathing suits. I held my breath as I checked the tag for the size. Could it be? YES, it was (in theory) the right size.
It was black. It had a v-shaped neckline. It was a one-piece! And, get this, it promised to take (“up to”) one inch at the waist and the hips! (Pictured on the right side of this page … haha, note red lines for special emphasis.)
I tried it on. And it fit. WOOT! I was thrilled. But jeez, it’s such a regular-looking suit. Why the hell was it so hard to find? How come I had to try on a dozen suits to get to this point?
As I said, I was thrilled, but my high was short-lived. As I waited at the cash register my elation quickly dissolved into silent poisonous purple rage. The lady ahead of me was buying two pairs of drastically-reduced underwear and decided right then and there that she had to get a Sears card, you know, so she could save $10 on her first purchase…. which was the underwear. Honestly, I thought I was going to keel over and die.
Did I mention the two bags of groceries I was holding? Yes, I went to Loblaws to buy our dinner BEFORE I went to try on swimsuits. Gah. I was imagining my perishables perishing in my grasp… the limp ham, the oozing mushy feta.
I was there for at least 15 minutes, sweating in my wool pea coat, with bags of warm groceries at my feet and a kick @ss swimsuit in my hot little hands and a growing lineup of people behind me. I didn’t say a word, but when it got to be my turn this is what I felt like saying to the cashier:
“I KNOW IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT, BUT EVERYTIME I SHOP HERE SOMEONE IN LINE AHEAD OF ME DECIDES TO FILL OUT A CREDIT CARD APPLICATION. WHY COULDN’T CREDIT CARD APPLICATIONS AND CREDIT-RELATED ISSUES ALL BE SORTED OUT AT A SPECIAL CASH REGISTER SET ASIDE JUST FOR THIS PURPOSE? SHOULD THIS OPTION BE UNAVAILABLE, ANOTHER CASHIER SHOULD STEP IN AND ATTEND TO THE POOR SODS LIKE ME WHO ARE STUCK IN LINE BEHIND THE WRETCHED CREDIT CARD APPLICANT.”
Of course I didn’t say anything of the kind.
I waited while the application was filled out, processed, a temporary one was issued, the cashier called for a special number, the transaction was completed and the lady was informed that she had a $3.00 credit on her card. Aaaaaaargh.
The cashier made it up to me. Although she didn’t apologize for the delay, she did tell me that the bathing suit I had purchased was going be marked down 30% on Friday and that I should come back with my receipt and get reimbursed. Considering the thing cost $89.00 I might just do that.
Frustrations aside, I think it was worth it. I am happy to have my suit.
But my shopping doesn’t end there. Last night I went bra shopping. All of my underwear tends to go at the same time and believe me when I say It Was Time. I won’t go into details, but let me just say that the experience was a whole lot like the one I described above, but happily, without the melting groceries and the credit card application.
