The Skirt from Hell

I hate shopping. I can’t really remember my last shopping trip because I passed out in the dressing room at Macy’s. But not the pretty five-floored Macy’s in New York City where a sales person might rush to get you a bottle of seven dollar water and a cold towel. No, I was semi-conscious in the Kings Plaza Mall in Brooklyn. No one brought me water, and no one helped my mother when she asked for one.

A person can only take so much before getting seriously overheated from the heat lamps they call light bulbs, and depressed when nothing you try on fits! It’s truly unbelievable. Once, an overtly flamboyant male sales associate at a Banana Republic told me that I shouldn’t continue to shop there because I was trying to “match THIS with THAT.” I was twelve…and he snapped at me! Then, there is always the lovely fact that clothing stores barely carry anything above a size six. I was forced to shop at Old Navy until a few years ago when I finally decided that I just didn’t give a shit and I’d fork over the fifty dollars for a pair at the Gap.

With that said, this is where the ethereal and mystical skirt comes in. I was shopping for an outfit for my younger cousins Bar Mitzvah. My mother and I went to Kings Plaza where I was to pass out. Annoyed from my attitude, she dragged me all the way to the Five Towns where all the Lubavitch and Orthodox live. Needless to say there were limited styles and colors to choose from; most of the women and girls wear black and cover their knees and elbows. I was pulled and pushed into four stores, all more sterile than the previous. I was also getting more and more listless, tired, and uninterested which also set my mother off some more and continued this disastrous cycle.

Somehow I had found this spandex-like material skirt that was black (surprise, surprise) and tiered. I was put off because only girls from New Jersey wore tiered anything and I HATED people from Jersey as my experiences from sleep-a-way camp had taught me. Now I’m a reformed Jersey hater, but this was my feeling at the time. Stores were closing for Shabbos so I only made it out with skirt; no shoes and no top.

I wore the skirt to the Bar Mitzvah. I wore the skirt to a birthday party. I wore the skirt to my Lacrosse Team dinner. I wore the skirt to my high school graduation. I wore the skirt to my brother’s college graduation. I wore the skirt to Passover Seder’s. I wore the skirt to a college party. I have now owned the skirt for eleven years. I have tried countless times to get rid of it and much to my dismay, whenever I threw it in the trash; it magically reappeared in my closet. But, then I’d end up wearing it again to another function.

It still hangs in my closet. In fact, I’m glaring at it right now. It’s like Chucky- it just won’t die.