rockle-riffic - managing mischief since at least 1974

Riddle me this, Batman: why in the holy hell is it so goddamn difficult to get a pretty party dress if you're a real live grown-ass woman with actual fucking boobs?

I ask this question because I am looking for something to wear to my company's swanky annual booze-and-schmooze holiday party, and asking the vapid vacuous twiglets who work in so-called alleged "customer service" in mall department stores where one (aka "I") might find the plus-size cocktail dresses is apparently akin to asking Britney Spears if she knows where one (aka "any-damn-body") might find some underpants.

For example: at Macy*s in the King of Prussia Mall today, I asked someone -- she was maybe 22 or 23 years old, and she was wearing a pair of jeans that looked like they had been gnawed by badgers and then run through a thresher, so probably she was one of those faux "alternative" girls who has no earthly idea who the Ramones are and I swear to God, I don't know what is wrong with these kids these days -- if I might find the women's dresses in the dress section (where I was) or in the women's section (which is hidden up on another floor, waaaay in the back, hidden behind the coats and the elevators).

First, she blinked about seventeen times, like she couldn't believe that I was daring to speak to her. (Possibly, this was the case at first, since I do not speak like I am constipated and trying not to vomit all at the same time, thereby revealing myself to be not a native-born Main Liner.) Then I saw her mouth move for a full ten seconds before any sound came out. When she finally spoke, what she said was this: "Aren't you already in the women's department?"

Don't know about you, but I didn't really have anything to say to that. I know I about felt my eyes roll out of my head, though, and I guess Miss Wisconsin (get it? her pants were chewed by badgers? oh, never mind, you're ruining my joke) thought I was having a seizure or something, because she got this panicked look on her face and quickly added: "I mean, we don't really have a separate section for the trannies or anything. They just shop with the rest of us."

Is that so? Was she really telling me that it would be easier for a Joan Rivers impersonator to find a dress in that store than it would be for me?

Look, I'm not ashamed to admit that I am a size 24. In fact, it bears repeating: I am not ashamed to admit that I am a size 24. Really, it's not like I'm diseased or anything. Could I stand to lose a few pounds, or a few dozen? Hell yes. But I assure you, cellulite is not communicable. Maybe I can't sneak up on people the way I used to (and I would argue with my big freaking mouth that I never really could), but I don't deserve to be treated like I belong in a circus freak show.

There are only a couple of stores around here that carry clothes in my size anyway, and most of them either do not carry dressy stuff at all, or they stuff they do carry is hideous and looks like it's made out of upholstery fabric. Which makes me wonder what is wrong with retail buyers. Do they really think they're helping us out by buying ill-fitting blazers in floral chintz with giant fucking buttons? That blending in to the sofa is going to make us look smaller? Are they deranged, blind, or just assholes?

Alternatively, do they really think I'm going to spend $149.99 on a dress that is so shapeless and unflattering that I wouldn't expect my 80-year-old grandmother to wear it? I am 33 years old and, if I may say so myself, fairly hip. Which those frocks most definitely are not. I double-dog-dare the "social occasion" dress buyers at Boscov's to actually wear one of those ugmobiles out in public. Are you kidding me? I'm fat, but I'm not hideous, and I'm definitely not stupid. No way am I spending money to voluntarily look dowdy.

So at this point it looks like I'm going to be doing the tackiest thing in the history of ever: I am going to wear the same dress to the same event twice. Two years in a row, even. But I shouldn't complain too much (although I will). Last year's dress was red and kind of slutty and made my rack look fantastic.

Miss Wisconsin? She'll have to buy 'em if she wants 'em. Heh.