It was time for some retail therapy. The morning had been your
typical Monday with fires popping up left and right and us with neither the
time nor the energy to put them out. We were both grumpier than usual, and by
the time lunch rolled around, we knew we needed to get the heck outta Dodge.
Allyson, my fashionable
coworker and fabulous friend, suggested a trip to a trendy boutique just down
the street from us. “They’re having a sale,” she urged. “It’ll be great!”
Considering the morning we’d
had so far, I readily agreed to this little adventure. Truth was, I wanted to
buy something cute for myself and restore that always great weekend feeling that had been stolen away, per
usual, late Sunday afternoon…
The words “trendy boutique”
should have been my first hint that maybe this shop wasn’t for me. Not
surprisingly, my nerd senses started tingling the moment we walked through that
door and into the land of sheer pastels and flowing maxi dresses and strange
creatures called bandeaus. Everything inside me screamed, “Get out!” And the
snooty looks on the employees and patrons faces should have sent me running.
But y’all, shopping at thirty
isn’t easy. You’re caught in some sort of no-man’s land between the youthful,
trendiness of your twenties and the more mature, chic wardrobe of your
thirties. You haven’t quite decided that you want to give up things like
unicorn tank tops and skinny jeans and sparkly Toms. Or at least, I haven’t.
This boutique seemed as good a
place as any to search for that elusive sort of clothing that was both youthful
and chic, both mature and trendy, and to heck with snobby women who think they
possess some secret membership to the “I’m cool” club; in true Pretty Woman
fashion, I was going to show them that this nerd had money to spend and
bandeaus to buy!
A bandeau, as I have learned, is
an undergarment meant to be worn with the sheer fabrics that are apparently all
the rage these days. Nearly every article of clothing I touched was some form
of see-through; laces and tulles and soft, thin cottons crowded the racks and
screamed, “You could never pull me off!” at the top of their little fabric
lungs.
After being run off several
times by pushy, confident twenty year-olds who seemed to think I was either
invisible or not worth common courtesy, I finally settled in at a rack that
seemed more my style. Within minutes, I’d gathered three adorable tanks that
were more-or-less of a solid fabric and (mostly) age appropriate. Never mind
that all three were probably meant to be worn as dresses…
Triumphantly, I presented my
tanks, along with some jewelry selections, to the cashier. She eyed me, my
frizzy hair, and my less-than-fashionable work outfit, doubtfully, then rang me
up with a little smirk. The nerd inside me sang as I imagined how cute I would
be in my new tank dresses tops and trendy little earrings.
When Allyson and I arrived back
at work, I showed off my purchases to some of my other co-workers, all young
women in their twenties. They oohed and aahed appropriately, and I beamed when
I reached my favorite tank, the blue one with white dragonflies on it.
Ashley, one of the trendiest
women in our office, sweetly interrupted my fashion show. “Uh, Katie, isn’t
that a romper?”
A
romper?! Wait, isn’t that something a toddler wears?
Shocked, I grasped around at
the bottom of the garment and realized that it was, in fact, a one-piece, an
adult onesie, if you will. In my quest to recapture just a bit of my youth, I
had gone back way too far. I looked up at my friends and coworkers in horror
and screeched, “I accidentally bought a romper!!”
The joke around the office now
is that I should at least try it on, but I know better. Bandeaus and rompers
and sheer clothing aren’t for me; it’s time to turn in the sparkly shoes and
unicorn tanks. Adulthood, unceremoniously, has arrived.
.jpg) |
| The offending garment |
