Saturday, December 13, 2008

Safety cloak

(Edit: I felt compelled to write this post as I was rearranging a closet. I had my hand on my gorgeous, size 10, plum-colored, cashmere-blend coat that likely will never fit me again in this lifetime. Still, I can't bear to give it away. I love that coat and it makes me resent the replacement.)

Last year, I needed to buy a coat. It wasn't a pleasant task since the reason for my quest was my ever-expanding ass. Coats that fit in the chest and shoulders had no interest in meeting around my hips.

I went to Ross. It's my favorite store and where I do 90% of my shopping. They had lots of really ugly coats that fit. I wasn't going to pay $80-$90 for something hideous. Instead, I found something outrageous for only $30. I call it The Plus-Size Barbie special. The weird thing is, as much as I detest this coat, I get a lot of compliments on it.

The coat is bright pink, like Dubble-Bubble. It has big, black buttons, cuffed sleeves, a modified empire waist, and a bit of a swing cut (hence the ability to fit around my hips and actually button closed). It's a Liz Claiborne, but I'm sure that Liz didn't design it with my body shape in mind. I hate this coat. I suppose that if I had bought it under different circumstances, it might not irritate me so much, but for now it's a very pink reminder of my failure to actually look like Barbie. I'll bet that this coat is adorable on a size 6 woman.

The upside of this coat is that it offers a degree of protection in an urban environment. Every day, I have to cross one of the busiest streets in the city. Drivers routinely ignore the "No Right On Red" signs, and the "Yield to Pedestrians in Crosswalk" sign is, apparently, invisible. I figure that when I get run over, the driver responsible for my demise will be laughed at as he is led away by the police when he says, "I just didn't see the XXL pink overcoat in the crosswalk." Please.

2 comments:

DaftDragon said...

hello from chicago :) new to your blog, very honest. i can appreciate the lack of joy in buying new, larger clothes, but hey, i guess thats life. and funny spin with "protection".

May Voirrey said...

Welcome to May's world, DaftDragon. It's an unpredictable place. It's the only place I can really be myself and say what I need to say--ironically, anonymously.

Right now I'm revisiting feeling really pissed off about having BP and about being minimally supported in my struggles with being differently wired,and I'm always obsessing over my weight.

Stick around. It all changes quickly. Sometimes I even manage to say something funny.

Chicago. Brrr. I used to go to Mt. Prospect on business quite often (twice a month), yet never set foot in Chicago proper aside from O'Hare. Oddly enough.