Silly Sadness

Shopping for clothes is not among my favored activities. If I set out looking for a specific item, whether it be a pencil skirt, an A-line skirt, a pair of jeans, a button up blouse, a knit top - it doesn't matter because I won't be able to find it. Or I will be able to find it but it will be outrageously expensive and I don't do outrageously expensive.

On Wednesday afternoon I was returning from Vancouver and was due to visit my grandparents and aunt in Olympia and since I was going to be much earlier than our agreed upon time and since I was passing through Centralia I stopped to see what the outlets had to offer me.

It is with a bit of reservation that I even put in writing for others to read the name of the first (and only) store I went in and once I do you will know why: Dress Barn. Really? Why didn't they up the ante and put cow or pig in their name? It has just as much appeal as naming your clothing store after a place where fat, stinky animals are housed.

My first Dress Barn encounter occured last winter when I needed a dress to wear to Ryan's company picnic and I didn't feel like hauling myself and Gavin all the way down to Southcenter but all the way down to West Seattle's Westwood Village instead. There I had three stores to choose from:

Target and their crappy clothes that fall apart, are ill made and shrink even after being washed according to the instruction label,

Chico and their slightly more mature sensibility and hefty price tag or

Dress Barn and their surprisingly cute clothes and itty bitty price tags won. Hands down.

As I walked into the store on Wednesday I couldn't remember if they only sold dresses as their name would imply. But, unlike the implications of the store's name, the dresses that I recalled from December of last year did not consist of cow prints, mumus and barn red dresses so I figured it would be worth a looksie to see if they carried more than dresses.

It was my lucky day! Not only did they have oodles and oodles of blouses, shorts, capris, skirts and dresses they were also all on sale! Woo-hoo! I wandered from sales rack to sales rack and found about 12 blouses. Of those 12 I whittled the collection down to 6 I liked and finally down to 4 that I loved. Of the four there was one that I loved best. It was a beautiful, vibrant blue, almost an aqua in color; it buttoned up and had a belt just below the bust. Everything about it was right. There was no blousing (where there is a gap between the buttons) thanks to the little sewn on belt, the length was perfect and the color complemented my skin beautifully.

So happy was I that I ripped the tag off and wore it out of the store (after paying for it of course). OK, so I also had a huge milk spot on my shirt that I noticed as I was wandering around the store (and it wasn't cows milk...). I bought 4 shirts for less than $40, including tax. 4 shirts that I really, really like. There was no settling.

I wore the shirt when I saw my grandparents and when I got home I showed it off to Ryan then put my pajamas on so not as to soil my perfect new blouse. I wore it again the next evening when I met up with my girlfriends at Chocolati for our bible study. I love me some chocolate, especially chocolati chocolate. But, alas, chocolate was my undoing that night.

I happily sipped on my cold, blended chocolate drink. That's not true - I slurped my drink in a chocolate craving frenzy. As Heather was talking I heard Heidi say, "Oh, no. You have chocolate on your shirt." When I looked at Heidi and saw that she was looking at me I followed her gaze and looked down and sure enough there was chocolate on me. "Of course I do! I just bought it," was my angry response. Fuming, I blotted the chocolate and Krissy said she normally carries a Tide to Go stick with her but not tonight.

It has been treated with 2 different stain removers 3 times and laundered 3 times. Nothing. The stain faded a bit but a chocolate stain stands out on an aqua color. After searching chocolate stain removal methods one bit of helpful advice I found was seemingly obvious: don't waste your time, go to a dry cleaner. Duh. I called several and my heart sank with each conversation as they all said, "Ooh, chocolate? I can try but can't promise anything." I took it to Beacon Hill Cleaners and as I was describing the stain I told the owner that I washed it three times but had not dried it. He said the water probably set the stain but that he would try his best to get the stain out.

Why couldn't it have been any other shirt? It is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find a button up shirt that fits me well because of my, um, build. My stupid "build" makes a well fitting shirt so difficult to find because it won't fit around my shoulders and around the bust. Lame. When I do find a button up that fits in the shoulders and in the bust what do I do after wearing it on two brief occasions? Stain it!!!

I suppose I could try to find the same shirt at the Westwood Village Dress Barn. I bet they will have it in stock but only in size small OR in my size but only in pastels which look absolutely horrid on me.

If the stain doesn't come out I will try one more method of stain removal that I found on-line that involves vinegar, liquid detergent and soaking and blotting and drying and washing. If that doesn't work I'll cry and mourn the beautiful shirt and reminisce the two glorious times we had together. Then I'll dye it black and hope that it turns out OK.

That concludes my silly story of sadness. If that is the worst thing that happens to me this summer then I am really blessed.