I ran out of dryer sheets.
You know the ones…they make your clothes smell like FRESH SPRINGTIME RAIN (if it were synthetic, man made, reduced to sheet form and crammed in a box) and they’re supposed to ‘Reduce Static Cling’.
But hey, no big deal. I didn’t particularly want to smell like fresh springtime rain, the real kind OR the boxed kind.
But what I DID want to do was go shopping. So I dressed in my uniform of leggings, as-close-to-tunic-length top as I had and because that top wasn’t quite as long as I’d like, I threw on my crocheted, fringe to the knees, sweater vest. I was channeling Stevie Nicks and feeling pretty good.
As I weaved through the aisles of every possible color and style shirt that existed (except for the one I wanted), I could feel the arms of random shirts occasionally brush my leg or stomach, reaching out from the racks like a long lost friend, trying to go in for the awkward hug. The full racks were close together as the store wrestled with new springtime merchandise and the sales of long sleeved winter clothes.
After stopping several times and holding up a top to see if it was long enough to cover my butt and/or hoo-haa (hey, ya gotta call it something…and hoo-haa works for me. After all, this IS a G-rated story…), I noticed more and more random sleeves reaching out to me, eager to wrap themselves around my thigh, back or chest. My only thought was that they Really needed to make these aisles bigger…
I pushed on through the sale racks, searching for that elusive piece that would go with everything, piling tops in my buggy (that’s a shopping cart for you non-southerners…), hoping at least one would fit. I rounded a corner and found a rack of tops on sale, all solid colors and long in the back AND front (hoo-haa covered alert!). As I pulled one out to hold up, I glanced in the slim mirror covered divider, really only there for decoration, but ohmahlawd what a tiny sight to see.
Yes, in that slim piece of reflection, I realized WHY the eager arms of polyester tops were reaching for me….I had BECOME one giant static ball of walking yarn.
I quickly moved over to a REAL mirror to confirm what I was afraid I was looking at….and lemme tell ya…until you’ve seen a beige open- weave crocheted vest and 428 straight strings of yarn (otherwise known as fringe) cupping your butt, hanging on for DEAR life, you’ve really not seen it all.
THINK QUICK…could I take the vest off and just wander around the rest of the store with the chance of my covered–in-leggings-only butt and hoo-haa showing or should I make a mad dash to the car with fringe gripping my butt, holding on for dear life in case the yarn slasher was released inside the store….
I made the most rational decision I could make…I headed straight for the dressing room, where I could remove the fringed sweater vest in private, try on new tops AND see if I could figure out what to do next. Hey, I’m not a thinking woman for nothing! Once inside the cocoon of plaster, wall sized mirrors and cheap curtains, I peeled the fringe from my leggings and hung it on the hook with all the other tops I was planning on trying on. Usually, the old trick of water helps with static but the dressing room was fresh out of that source. I remembered that hairspray works as well, and being the good ‘the higher the hair, the closer to God’ Southern woman, I always carry a small car of hairspray in my pocketbook (that’s a purse for you non-southerners).
I got the small ‘travel’ size can out and began to spray the bejesus out of that fringe, just daring it to cling to my butt when I put it back on. I was spraying like a mad woman, totally oblivious to the small, enclosed area known as the women’s dressing room and the possibility of other people in various forms of undress. After the first sneeze and the 2nd cough, I thought that was probably enough hair spray and stood back to admire my handiwork, sure that I would see well-behaved fringe instead of strings sticking out at 90 degree angles.
There’s just one thing about hairspray.
It’s sticky. Really, REALLY sticky.
So now….I had 428 strings of yarn that weren’t static-y any more…because they were ALL STUCK TOGETHER.
And, being that I only have a travel sized can of GOOD hairspray, the strings then began to stick to EVERYTHING else. Apparently, in my spraying enthusiasm, I managed to spray straight through the fringe and onto the clothes I was going to try on.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to buy any of the tops I brought to the dressing room, and I was positive the fringe was no longer static but NOW had a whole new reason for sticking to everything it touched, so I thought it best that I leave.
I took the tops to the dressing room attendant, told her I didn’t need them, but that it was possible I had gotten hair spray on them and what did she think I should do about it.
And with her words, I knew my day was complete….
“Honey, hairspray ain’t nothing. You should SEE what we find in some of those dressing rooms…”
Ok, I’m done. Me and my fringe-covered butt are so outta here. But I’m stopping and getting dryer sheets on the way home….