BUSTING OUT

Years ago my friend Sandy and I were in a city store trying on ball dresses. Sandy was a hilarious character and one of my closest friends at the time. In some ways we were so alike but in others so different. She was loud, funny and a smoker. I was loud, sometimes funny and my Mum would have killed me if I became a smoker...so I didn't.

Anyway back to the ball dresses. Sandy tried on a particularly ravishing, full length, peach coloured dress and stood back admiring herself in the mirror. I personally though she looked like a doll on a toilet roll cover, but there was no way I would have said that ( back then in the eighties we were all nice). She must have suddenly had the same thought,  because she started to climb out of the dress. Out came one arm. Up went the dress  over her head...well sort of because that's when she realised she was stuck.

She had tried to get out of the dress without undoing the zip at the back and she had become stuck. There she stood with half her head poking out of the dress and with one arm free...and the rest of her was stuck ...really stuck...the sort of stuck where you know the zipper is faulty.

Between her pleas for my help and her threats if I didnt,  she occasionally laughed. Between her pleas for my help and her threats if I didn't, I was hysterical with laughter. Seems kind of mean now thirty years later, but at that point I had never seen anything so funny as my overweight friend threatening to kill me if I didnt help her get out of the dress. I may have taken her seriously if I could have seen her full head, but with half of it immersed in taffeta and lace ( eew eighties fashion) I didn't really care.

I was laughing so hard that I actually left the change room and left her in there. Her threats became loud and deadly so rather than risk an angry clothes assistant,  I decided to go back in. There was no way to get her out, apart from ripping the dress. So we ripped the dress, she escaped and two twenty something year olds flew out of the door, ran through the shop and got the hell out of there.

I love that story and it never ceases to make me laugh.But she threatened me with karma and I'm just wondering if the time may have come!

This weekend I have been asked to take part in a fashion parade. Its a fundraiser for Royal Flying Doctor, which the F.E.D and I have used the services of three times. Now, I have no illusions about my body shape. I know I'm over weight and I know I could be a lot thinner, so I'm not worried about the fact I wont look like a supermodel up there. What I am worried about is that with this story resurfacing in my brain, it could be a warning signal, a sign that karma is about to collect.

So... Ive checked all the clothes.

All zips work.
All buttons are secure.
Shoes are a snug fit.

What could go wrong???

If you're reading this Sandy, I lied...the dress was hideous...even by eighties standards. I'm glad you got stuck in it because otherwise you may have liked it and may have bought it and I may have had to sit next to it all night.

 Please forgive me before this weekend.

Till next time.....xx