whiskey in a teacup . com

One of my closest friends is getting married this weekend, and I am in the wedding party, which necessitated the purchase of a bridesmatron dress. It’s actually quite pretty, although when it arrived it was very slightly loose in the bust and the waist. I didn’t think it was worth paying for alterations, considering what I’d already paid for the dress itself and since only about half an inch of fabric needed to be nipped in. I figured I’d fix the problem with creative undergarment technology, and I put the whole thing out of my mind. Today, however, I tried it on again and I’m starting to worry. The dress is strapless, which is not a style I would ordinarily wear. The euphemism “rack” does not really apply to my particular set of breasts, as their modest size precludes their usefulness at supporting or holding up articles of clothing. There is a very real risk that the slight gap between myself and the dress, combined with the lack of straps, will not bode well for anyone involved. Especially me.

At first this dilemma made me feel a bit smug: aren’t I just the most twee, skinny thing, I thought to myself. Even clothes that are quasi-custom made are too big for little old me! That load of tripe quickly came crashing down all around me today, when I found myself trying on a summery dress (this one to wear as a guest at yet another wedding) at the mall. This dress had a band of fabric at the bodice that was meant to fit close to the ribcage. However, there were no zippers or buttons or give in the material to enlarge said band enough to allow passage of the rest of the body into the garment. This silly engineering was no match for my sticktoitiveness, and since the dress was in my size I put in some legwork and managed to get myself into it. Once it was on it fit perfectly. I considered purchasing it. Then I tried to take it off, and that’s where this story takes a turn for the truly horrific. That band of fabric, which refused to stretch but still had somehow made it over my shoulders, would not budge at all when I tried to remove the dress. I briefly attempted to pull it down over my hips, but it was quite obvious that this approach would not work. I tried to pull it over my shoulders again, but I could only get one arm halfway into the bodice of the dress. As I pulled and twisted, I became more and more entrapped. I was stuck, and clearly I was going to die in this dress. The possibility of somehow getting it up around my neck and strangling myself with it, forcing me to run out of the dressing room half naked and gasping for help before passing out, was becoming more and more real. The arm I had wedged under the fabric band was actually starting to bruise as a result of my struggles. Deciding that this aggression would no longer stand, I was left with no choice but to remove the leatherman tool from my purse and make a couple of crucial snips, thus freeing myself forever from the demon dress.

It is a shameful, dark moment indeed when you are forced to cut yourself out of an item of clothing. I imagine it will be darker still when, sometime tomorrow, my bridesmatron dress loses contact altogether with my girlish chest and causes some form of awful humiliation that I will not be able to hide behind a dressing room door.

I finally got the photo.  In the interest of full disclosure, it was several days before I even realized that “liquors” is a homophone for “lickers”.

We as a society need to outlaw the practice of including samples of honking car horns in pop music tracks. During my morning commute the 60’s Vibrations station started playing “Expressway to Your Heart” (quite a jaunty little tune!) and though I’ve heard it many times, I couldn’t be sure if the honks I heard were from the song or the drivers behind me. This left me nervous and dissatisfied.

In other banal driving news, yesterday I spent an unpleasant 90 minutes traveling twenty miles to a CPR training course north of the city. I lost a tremendous amount of time just getting to the highway, though once I reached it I was doing okay. Soon, though, urgency and exhaustion caused me to commit a classic blunder, understandable perhaps only to drivers who are familiar with the metro Boston highway system. Around here, see, routes 95 and 128 are for the most part the exact same road. They split at some point, but among people who live where I live, they are generally thought of and referred to only as “95″. Throughout my life, almost all of my northern destinations have been off of the 95 arm of the split. Although my course was located off of 128, muscle memory, as well as a long-believed fallacy that 128 doesn’t actually exist as an independent route, kept me on 95. This mistake was quickly realized and easily corrected, but by the time I did get back to route 128 it was a proverbial parking lot. I wound up arriving at my destination exactly on time (having left 60 minutes ahead of what gmaps recommended), and was utterly amazed to see that it was located next to an establishment called Bunghole Liquors.

During a break from the training, I went outside and tried to covertly snap a camera phone picture of the Bunghole Liquors sign under cover of dusk. When I went back in, my buddy (because you can’t re-learn basic life support for the third time without a partner to roll you into the recovery position and perform fake Heimlich on you!) asked me what I was doing out there; was I taking a picture? “Oh, yes, the liquor store has a…funny sign,” I said, unable to admit to her and the rest of the class that the name “Bunghole Liquors” deeply titillated me. Sadly, my photo did not come out, but I have to go back next week and this time I’ll be prepared to take a good shot.

“The world economy’s about to collapse, you know. We’re on the verge of World War Fucking Three. Barack Obama. You want to know what I think of Barack Fucking Obama? You don’t want to fucking know!”

“Apparently we do,” I replied, but by then he was starting to wander off. It was probably just as well.

“Magick! Leave Moonbeam alone!”

Do I really need to add anything to this? I think not.

While browsing the TV titles available for viewing on Netflix:

E: “We could watch Quantum Leap.”

J: “Oh, that’s some of Scott Bakula’s best work!”

E: (pejoratively) “Quantum Leap is Scott Bakula’s only work.”

J: “False! He was on that Star Trek spin-off.”

E: “You mean Stargate.”

J: “It was Star Trek.”

E: “No, I feel like it was Stargate.”

J: (enraged) “Pfft. It was Star Trek. You need to get your facts straight!”

E: “My Scott Bakula facts? Are those what I need to get straight?”

It turned out he was right…dude was on Enterprise for like four years. Say what you will about Jared, but he has definitely got his Scott Bakula facts straight.

This afternoon found me standing in line at one of those newfangled self checkout lanes at the supermarket. The girl ahead of me was futzing with the payment screen, and we smiled at each other. While she was bagging her items, I asked, “Do you mind if I start?” since my items would come barreling down the belt and get mixed in with hers. (I note that there is no established etiquette for this situation, but I think it’s polite to ask first). She gave me her blessing. I began to scan my groceries and she gathered her bags and departed. Things were going smoothly when, suddenly, Bagging Area became Full and the scanner stopped cooperating. I scurried down to the end of the belt and squashed all my items together, a technique that often alleviates this particular quandary. I walked back to the scanner and tried to scan again. The belt started moving in reverse, bringing back the item that I had just scanned, while a robotic voice admonished me to Bag Some Items, Then Try Again. A line was starting to form behind me, so with great urgency I Bagged Some Items. As I did so, I cast a sympathetic-slash-knowing look at the customers behind me, hoping that we could all be united by our hilarious struggles with the modern world. The guy directly behind me was not interested in sharing this sentiment, though the guy behind him looked at me with a certain degree of compassion.

The next catastrophe hit when my yogurts would not scan. I had stacked them up on the small counter adjacent to the scanner so I could save them for last. This strategy angered the scanner, which told me to Remove All Items From Front Belt (which was a bit of a misnomer, really). So I put all the yogurts back in my basket, scanned the rest of my items, and tried again to scan the yogurts. I could feel the people behind me start to bristle and make cruel, silent judgments about my character and my ability to use self checkout lanes. Out of options, I asked a nearby bagger to help me, and she came over with her badge and her secret codes and even that would not get the yogurts to scan. I was ready to say “Fuck the yogurts”, except I had told Jared I would get them and I didn’t want to break the sacred bonds of marital trust. At this point I was actively sweating, fully aware of the hatred of all who beheld this pathetic event. The helpful bagger eventually found a way to manually input a price for the yogurts, and I finished my transaction and Bagged my Items while the guy behind me gave up and went to another line.

All in all, it was a typical trip to the supermarket: thoroughly demoralizing and utterly humiliating. But by gum, I will not force my husband to go without yogurt.