Is That Mall There Is?

Yesterday morning I awoke to the light tap-tapping of drizzly rain on my skylight. Now don't go thinking I'm all fancy because I have a skylight. It's the only window in my room and it doesn't have a shade, so whenever dawn happens, that's when I wake up. Also: I can't open it, so I never breathe fresh air unless I leave the house...which I try never to do.

But, alas, I had to leave the house yesterday--and not to go do something fun like eat nachos at the roller rink or go hang-gliding or watch Under The Sea 3D at the IMAX in Grand Blanc. No...I had to go shopping for "professional clothing" for my nursing interview.

So it was gray and cold and "misting," which is the perfect weather for trying on clothes at Target in a shoddily-constructed dressing room, beneath florescent lights, amidst the chatter of employees bemoaning their shitty lives and elementary school children crying and screaming at their frazzled mothers demanding a box of popcorn from the concession stand or a Hannah Montana Tote Bag with Wig and Assorted Accessories. I'm convinced that all the clothes they sell at Target are for 'Juniors'--even the maternity clothes. And why does every shirt have a cartoon owl on it? I mean, I love owls a LOT, but come on Target. Would it kill you to make one owl-less shirt? Or one shirt without a peace sign on it?

Nothing fit me. Well, a few things fit, but they all made me look like the greasy-haired, pot-bellied, missing-a-tooth, line cook that is my inner self but that still hasn't completely taken over my outside appearance. I wadded everything up and left it in a sad little pile in the corner of the dressing room, then walked out with my head held high. After chilling out in the DVD-book-candle-mascara-CD-lotion-computer game section for a good forty-five minutes (I am MUCH more at home in this section, by the way) and fretfully thinking things like: Why can't I find The Neverending Story on DVD? and I see seasons 8 and 9 of ER here, but what about seasons 1-7? I decided to bite the bullet and go to the epicenter of the universe: Genesee Valley Mall.

It was still early when I arrived at the mall. After all, there were still decent parking spots to be had (I don't rely on clocks to tell me what time it is. I measure time in parking spot availability). I parked ALMOST RIGHT NEXT TO the J.C. Penny entrance and then, after much back-and-forth in my head over whether or not to wear my coat inside (my coat being a disgusting fleece circa 1996 that makes me look like Aileen Wuornos), I opened the door and walked into the dark, blissful cavern that is J.C. Penny--coatless. Once inside, I felt simultaneously buoyed by hope and filled with an intense panic. So many clothes! So many possibilities! Then again: so many clothes, so many possibilities.

I walked around, touching a random shirt or pair of pants here and there, avoiding salespeople like the plague, listening to unobtrusive soft rock, and trying to find my bearings. Ok, I thought, where do they keep the fat-people clothes? I would've asked the salesgirl that was standing near me--the one with the severe black eyeliner, skinny jeans, and technicolor bangle bracelets--but I was afraid she would say something like: "Uh huh, the Women's section? Yeah, um, you're gonna walk through the 'Pretty Young Things' section and the 'Getting Laid on a Regular Basis' section, oh and the 'See This Body? This Is What Self-Control Looks Like' section and that'll land you right where you need to be--the 'You Should Be Ashamed Of Yourself' section." So I didn't ask. I just wandered and broke into a light sweat at the thought of having to try on pants.

I knew immediately when I finally stumbled upon my section of the store because all the clothes stopped being cute and fashionable. Now everything was paisley, paisley, paisley! And polka-dots, polka-dots, horizontal stripes! The soft silkiness of the materials in the skinny-girl sections disappeared and was replaced by a rough, double-ply, stretchiness. I'm pretty sure the people who make fat-girl clothes think that every time we sit down we're in danger of ripping something. And, well, that IS a fear of mine.

I got to the dressing rooms, my arms loaded with heaps of pants and shirts. I like the J.C. Penny dressing rooms because there are no snooty employees telling you how many items you can bring in, no one you have to shyly walk up to and quietly ask if they'll unlock the door, and no one pacing around outside your cramped little cubicle-of-doom shouting at you, asking if they can measure your bust or fetch you another size or horror of all horrors if you'll come out and show them how it looks (I mean, come on people, it's bad enough when my mom makes me show her the ridiculousness that is me in plaid clam-diggers and a puffy-sleeved polo shirt).

Why, why, why does clothing always look bigger on the hanger? At least for me it does. I'll pick up a pair of pants and hold them against my bottom half and they look like they'll fit, but then when I get into the dressing room I can't even get them up past my knees. I guess my holding-the-clothing-item-up-against-my-body system is flawed, but hey, it would work if I was a paper doll. Oh why oh why am I NOT a paper doll?

I spent a good 40 minutes in that dressing room, attempting to squeeze my rolls and rolls of unsightly fat into silk-ish tops and short-zippered (read: "low rise") dress pants, all the while thinking of the promised land outside the department store--you know, the rest of the mall, the safe part of the mall: the corridors that spread like spokes of a wheel from the mall's epicenter (the food court), corridors peppered with kiosks selling everything from cell phones to scented oils to candied nuts to fake hair to my personal favorite--soft pretzel nuggets with warm chocolate dipping sauce. Oh how I wished I could be cradled by the warm bosom that is the 'We-Sell-Wind Chimes' kiosk.

But alas, stuck inside that stuffy coffin of a J.C. Penny dressing room, I was. Don't worry. I found something eventually. It took about four hours of walking the mall, twelve or so self-affirmations in the dressing room mirror, opiates, and a tearful call to my sister, but I finally found an outfit that didn't make me look like a Nascar-loving dumpster diver.

As I walked out of the mall, I noticed that the skies had cleared and the sun was shining. An overwhelming feeling of pride at having made it through the ordeal rushed over me like a ray of self-love. Inside that dressing room, standing there completely vulnerable in my bra and underwear, afraid to look down at my puffy body and afraid to look across at the unforgiving mirror, I'd felt a swell of anger and frustration at myself for having treated my 'temple' so poorly. Right then and there I had made a promise to myself: "Self," I'd said aloud, "I will never again eat junk food." And as I strode across the parking lot toward my sporty little blue car, I made another promise to myself: "Self," I said with confidence and joy, "I will stop at A&W on the way home for a foot-long hot dog." ...And it was good.