So every year around this time, Mother and I take Zsa Zsa and Ava (8 and 6) to a department store to buy pretty frocks for Shabbos/Yom Tov/Simchas etc for the fall/winter season. Each girl gets around four dresses and in recent memory, they came from the 4-6x section of the store. I have been concerned, of late, that though Zsa Zsa is a mere slip of a girl at four foot one and 44 pounds, the four footers and above really do land in the realm of size 7.
The reason I have nervously approached this size 7 thing is that these days in America, dresses in the size 7-14 range are made to be as short and tight as possible. I have a teacher friend who says in her (secular) school, she sometimes walks behind girls on the staircase and tells them she can see their (thong) underwear. Um, yuck.
Anyway, we were on our way to the mall to purchase our fall/winter frocks when my phone rang.
"You're on your way to the mall, right dear?" asks Big Shot Husband.
"Yeah," I say.
"Could you please please see if you can find me a yellow tie to wear on TV tomorrow?" he sweetly requests. I grunt and hang up.
You see, when I am focused on a project, I DO NOT LIKE to veer away to another project as I usually allot a certain number of minutes to said project because I have tightly scheduled my next appointment. Yes, even on vacation. So I had allotted exactly one hour and ten minutes for the Gabor Shopping Extravaganza and did not want to go to a totally different store at a totally different part of the mall to start shopping for ties. Unfortunately, I mentioned the tie thing to Mother who is Big Shot Husband's groupie extraordinaire.
"Honeycake," she says, "we can just run into Department Store A for a few minutes to get the tie and then get the dresses at Department Store B."
"Mother," I say, "that is just not possible what with our time constraints and given that Department Store B is located at least a seven minute walk from Department Store A." (I am also excellent at estimating time and distance).
"Hm," she says thoughtfully.
We arrived at the mall and I saw Mother drive toward Department Store B (dresses) and then say, "Oh, you know what, there really isn't a lot of parking down there, I'm just going to park here, right in front of Department Store A (tie)." She is pretty smart and crafty, that mother of mine. That's why she is a medical doctor and I write blogs.
When we were safely at Department Store B, we split up. I looked for dresses with Eva in 4-6x and Mother and Zsa Zsa braved the 7-14 department. Since I had already gone online looking at the merchandise, I knew exactly which dresses I liked. Eva was pretty easy, we chose about eight dresses to try. Zsa Zsa, on the other hand, was extremely verbose and wanted to discuss each and every dress, both in the choosing stage and, later, in the try-on stage.
For example, I found a supercute dress in leopard print in size 7 and she said, "I don't really wear leopard, it's not my style." Um, what? I thought this girl was related to me and I adore animal prints. Plus, she IS a Gabor. In the dressing room, they tried on dress after dress, preening in the mirror and keeping up a running dialogue about the process.
Zsa Zsa: "They make really cute dresses these days."
Eva: "This I'm DEFINITELY getting."
Zsa Zsa: "That really brings out your eyes, Eva!"
Eva: "Wait, let me pose."
Zsa Zsa: "I have different poses for different dresses."
In the end, they each found four adorable dresses. Luckily, Zsa Zsa can still wear some 6x's but one of Zsa Zsa's dresses is a size 10(!) because the 7 was so tight and so short. And it fits her fine. We are in trouble next year. But we were done with fifteen minutes to spare. Oh, think of that! Mother could pick out ties for Big Shot Husband on our way out. She's pretty wily.
Meanwhile, I was proud of my daughters, with their tznius (modest) values, never asking for anything short or tight. Still dressing like adorable little girls (not trashy teenagers) since they are, after all, adorable little girls. I congratulated myself for the fact that they have never watched those deplorable shows on Nickelodeon so therefore don't know how "tweens" dress (that is the dumbest word ever, by the way). I thought of the values they learn at school and how their dress code teaches them that even when away from school they should wear long skirts, knee socks and long sleeves. Even in summer. And, by the way, this dress code provides excellent sun protection!
The next day, I was sitting outside on my parents' deck, content with the world. And then I saw them. Zsa Zsa and Eva were playing dress-up. They took their regulation frum girl ankle length black skirts, hiked them up to their chests to approximate short dresses, tied cardigans around their necks to look like scarves, and put their hair in buns. I almost had a stroke. I thought of that Robert Palmer video circa 1986 ("Addicted to Love"). I looked at them again. Yep, dead ringers. I thought about how sweet, innocent, and modest they are. And how all the values I and their school have instilled can so quickly fly right out the window. But by an hour later, they were all buttoned up again. For now.
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