Judy P's Tickle Trunk

or I Used To Be Skinny Once.

Honest, I did. This was me at twenty when I used to think I could stand to lose a few pounds.

My first tickle trunk.

Oh how I long for those bright days to come again once more……it was more than painful when Thursday past I had to don and discard dress after dress until I finally found one which pleased me.  I had gone with my friend Lynn to Suit Yourself at the old Brewery where I was sure I would find something suitable.

We thought it best to allow the owner to select her choices first as she knew the stock so well.  “How can I help You?” she inquired. “we’re looking for a wedding dress”. “And you’re the mother of the bride?” she asked. “No” I giggled “I’m the bride”. I felt silly saying at as I associate brides with bright young maids in  frufru frilly gowns with trains and flower petals and pearls and perky breasts peaking out over low cut bodices. I felt less than a fair maiden having come straight from work  wearing sneakers, twill pants and t-shirt, wool jacket, hair disheveled. More like matronly. She flicked through the racks and plucked dress after dress which she placed in the change room for my convenience. She handed me two pairs of high heels to set them off. In the end I preferred the shoes to most of dresses. Sigh.

Grey on grey.

I tried a beautiful deep ocean blue duppioni dress with the wide round neckline I love. Stretched too tight about the chest. Sigh. Then there was the grey and black with gemstones. Tight. Too grey with my grey hair. Sigh. Dress after dress went back on the hanger. In the meantime, after a glass of red wine, the hot flashes were gearing up in earnest. I was damp and I was starting to smell like a tom cat after a night on the town with a skunk he mistook for a kitty. I hoped it didn’t travel from the change room like a ghastly vapour around my torso every time I strutted across the store to show Lynn my latest pick.

Too Busy

Too Busty

After a while I began to get silly; I selected a pair of sunglasses from the rack and strutted about like Dolly Parsons. In the end I decided to go back to one of the first dresses I tried because I loved the colour. And my goodness, I even needed it in a smaller size. Once the decision was made I got extremely excited and was reluctant to change back into my smelly old work clothes and was even more reluctant to give up the shoes.

High Heels

It was all I could do to keep myself from running straight from the dress shop to Park Lane to buy my own high heels. But at this point I was weary so we went to buy food instead. Now you’d think the stretched dresses which refused to be zipped would have inspired me to order plain fish on lettuce and not the oily grilled veggie Caesar salad served in a deep fried bowl but hey, I made a wise decision when I chose a dress which could expand and contract with my waistline. In the meantime the ladies at the store were probably wondering what hit them – four thousand damp dresses to rescue from the change room which now likely needed fumigation, Florient, and a darned good Swiffering to clean up all those little black fluffys which escaped from my socks.

I had chosen a dress suitable for a former ‘beansprout’ wannabe hippie cum aging drama queen who shared a birthday (date not year) with Marilyn Monroe. I’m sure I liked it best because of the colour: it reminded me of my old worn  life vest and many happy days on the ocean. Here’s a taste:

The chosen one.