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The Sassy Sandpiper: A Dress Made Me Do it

Wilson | Sassy Sandpiper | Columnist

By M.R. Wilson, TB Reporter

Ah. The allure of those online ads.

I’m a smallish person. Compact and low to the ground. Not as compact as I thought, however.

Trying on a cute, new summer dress (curse those beguiling online ads!) and not being able to zip it up the back without assistance made me realize that “size” is not universally agreed upon.

Small” was snug.

Okay, tight.

Sassy Sandpiper | M.R. Wilson | DressUh-oh.

It is time to get back to Shapes, the fitness club for women I joined 18 months ago. Wishfully. With all good intentions.

I must have been possessed. I am not a gym person. I don’t like exercise with machines and I only reluctantly lift hand weights. Rarely, unless a full bottle of wine could be classified as a hand weight. I don’t like “working out” and I don’t like to sweat.

I froze the membership after a year of nearly perfect neglect, and thawed it out a few months later.

Still not a gym person. I have a rap sheet including two other abandoned gym memberships.

Messing around in the garden, walking at the Joe’s Creek Greenway, and occasionally riding a bike are more my speed, which is slow.

I also don’t like tight clothes. I’d applaud the comeback of togas. “If you keep something long enough, it always comes back in style.”

Anyway, the plan is to go and splash in the pool. I’d get something out of my membership other than the half dozen times I’ve visited for about 15 minutes and fled and the “satisfaction” of giving an overly generous contribution to the facility.

Giddy with new member enthusiasm, I’d purchased a “Bohemian” print gym duffel bag, padlock, water shoes (required), and a sleek one-piece black bathing suit. Turns out, it was/is still too tight, or maybe I’m too short. Stretched out, falling from a hanger, it looks great. Bunched up on my five-foot frame, it loses all those lovely panels and feels like a whalebone corset.

I tried unsuccessfully to return the thing. Not available in a larger size.

Woe.

A dress and a bathing suit smirk at me each time I open the closet. Let them. Inanimate objects do not easily pressure me.

A week later, I tried the dress again. Less snug. I could almost take a deep breath without wincing.

Maybe I can procrastinate about Shapes a little longer.

Yet, another lesson looms: a hint to buy more age-appropriate clothing.

Just look at that short, full skirt. Gulp. For shame! Can I ever wear this dress anywhere but the back yard? A 30-year- old could. A discerning male friend suggested it was better suited for 20-somethings.

With encouragement like that, I admonished myself:

  • 1. Do not consider another gym membership. Ever.
  • 2. Buy graceful, loose, flowing clothes.
  • 3. Donate the dress or give it to the teenager down the street.
  • 4. Burn the bathing suit.

The Sassy Sandpiper | Merry Wilson | Shapes | Joe’s Creek Greenway | Fitness | TB Reporter

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