Trapped in a velvet prison

What is the point of a blog if you can't occasionally humiliate yourself before all of mankind? You have to understand that I have been sick for the past couple of days. Really, really sick. I spent all day yesterday in my PJs wallowing in my bed, and it looked like today would follow the same pattern.

Even in the depths of my sickness, however, it was not lost on me that we have TWO formal events to attend next week--some Audie Murphy awards dinner on Thursday night followed by the holiday formal on Saturday. For the holiday formal, I'm planning on wearing the red dress I wore to JAG Prom last spring. (That is one good thing about moving every 2 years--there's always a new crowd, so nobody ever says, "Didn't you wear that thing to the last 3 dances?") I'm at a loss though as to what to wear to the dinner on Thursday night.

I've been planning on going up to Louisville to go shopping for a couple of days now, but given that I haven't even had the energy to shower and get dressed, those plans keep getting pushed aside. Today, I at least feel well enough to shop online, and that is what I have been doing for the past hour or so. I found several things I like, but of course they all cost money, and I'm feeling rather thrifty with Christmas staring me in the eye. So I went to my closet in a hail-Mary attempt to find SOMETHING, anything that I could make do with for the awards dinner.

I dug and I dug and I dug, and finally I came out with a long-forgotten black velvet dress that I had bought for a song at Lord & Taylors several years ago. I ripped off my PJs and pulled the dress over my head. I tugged and I tugged and I tugged, and finally I stood before my mirror looking not unlike a black velvet sausage:



Pretty dress, but it's not going to work for Thursday night unless I lose 5 pounds off my butt between now and then. Even the wonder unders can't provide the sort of control I would need to make this happen--believe me, I tried them.

Having used up what little energy I have this morning, I went to reverse the process so I could crawl back into my jammies and back into bed. I tugged and I tugged and I tugged, and I did manage to get the skirt up north of my hips, but then it stopped and no amount of tugging will get this dress off of me. It's a physical impossibility unless I break both arms and maybe a collar bone.

I've even looked around for a hook at just the right height, thinking that perhaps I could snag one of the bows on the back and then just kind of sink down, sliding out and leaving the dress hanging on the wall. I can't find the right hook though, and it's probably just as well. The only thing worse than having my husband coming home this evening to find me lying in bed wearing what appears to be a black velvet tube top would be having him come home to find my lifeless body hanging on the wall, strangled to death by a black velvet noose.

Then again, I don't know why I should worry about HIM. He knows what HE is going to wear--the same damn thing every other man in the room will be wearing, only none of them will be embarassed to find themselves dressed identically. After all, they look alike Monday through Friday, so it's old hat to them.

If I call 911, will they send the jaws of life?