Don't Wear Dresses in Public or Attend Brunches

Yee gods. It's been almost another week since I last posted.

First, I want to thank Marin for the warning link she put in the comment space about some poor woman who got her ass glued to a toilet seat. Apparently, the poor thing fell asleep on the pot for two months or some such thing and sat there for so long, she suffered neurological damage in her leg and had open sores on her ass which then glued her to the toilet seat. I've warned Hubster that he is not to leave me in the bathroom for two months, no matter how engrossing my crossword puzzles are.

I've received a few letters from worried friends who haven't heard from me. I'm sorry. If I haven't been sleeping, I've been working on the shop. I have quite a few new things and more new things to come. It's a lot of work updating the joint (who knew?), but I'm trying to update about once a week or so. There are some new vendors who have joined me - the number is up to 70! - so you'll see all kinds of new and wonderful things coming. One of the new vendors is a delightful man who is a woodworker, and he's not the man who is making the needle cases for me. 'Nuff said.

So yesterday, Hubster and I trucked on over to P-Town to the HIlton for Easter brunch. You have to understand something about me and Easter brunch. My mother insists on having it every year because she's Catholic. You figure it out - I've never been able to. She's very religious whenever it's a holiday, wedding, or funeral. Otherwise, she couldn't give a shit. She also berates me every year for whatever it is I've chosen to wear. I showed up in jeans and a T-shirt one year just to piss her off. It did. The problem is, I don't have anything nice to wear to such things, nor do I wish to spend money on clothes when I could be spending said money on yarn or notions. It's such a waste. So this year, I waited until yesterday morning just before I got in the shower to decide on what to wear. I found a dress with a shawl top thingie that fastens on the diagonal. It's as nice as I've got, so I wore that with no bra, my Power Panties, and no slip (that also pisses Mom off - she thinks that a proper lady wears a slip no matter what kind of dress she has on because you can see through it). That explains it, then. I'm not a lady, nor do I give a shit if people can see through the bottom of it. I'll never see these people again. They should be thankful that they get a glimpse of my dimpled thighs.

So Hubster and I strode into the Hilton looking for Mom. I spotted her at the buffet, so we pushed our way through the crowd waiting at the desk and marched up to her. She pointed out our table (I could see her biting her tongue at my outfit sans slip), and we went over to see our babies sitting there grinning at us. Lily's hair was fixed as well as it could be. Daisy really did a number on giving her a haircut, the little shit. Our daughter was there too, looking pretty good. She's lost a lot of weight - she has a new boyfriend. That girl has more boyfriends than I ever did. I think she's hoping to get married and out of Mom's house. Can't say as I blame her, but she won't be taking the kids with her. She just can't take care of them.

Anyway, we went up to the buffet, grabbed our plates, and began moving through the line. Did you think that I could go through an entire buffet line carrying a plate full of food without disaster striking? Silly readers. If nothing happened, I wouldn't even mention the fact that I was there.

Everything went just fine for the first few dishes. They had these huge chafing dishes with covers that were domed and rotated backwards on two hinges. Most of them were just left open so you could see what they contained. I found several things that looked tasty and proceeded to load up my plate.

Mistake #1.

I plopped some huge raviolis on my plate - at the edge, so I could make room for more stuff to cram in my mouth - and the plate tipped. I frantically tried to save it but to no avail. It tipped to the point where it overturned in my hand, covering the floor with a bunch of food. No matter. I put the plate down, kicked the food under the table, and got a new plate. Nobody saw, so I was in no fear of being that weird chick kicking food all over the floor.

I managed to make it through the rest of that particular table with no problem. Then I came to the next table. All the chafing dishes were closed. Hmm. I had to see what was in them. So I held the plate in my left hand and opened the chafing dishes with my right. The first one held rice. Nope. The second one held some fish concoction. NOPE. The third one... the third lid was stuck. Hmm. I decided to play it smart, so I put my plate down, held the bottom of the dish with my left hand, and tried to open the lid with my right. Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing. Then I noticed that someone had wrapped the handles with towels (apparently they were hot at some time), and the towels were jammed in the hinges.

Now, a sane person would have just left the damn thing alone. But I have issues. I have to know what's in things. So I gripped the bottom of the dish as tightly as I could, grabbed the handle with my right, and yanked.

You can see where I'm going with this.

Not only did the lid come flying open, the entire dish toppled over backwards. I tried to hold on to the damned thing, but over it went. So there I stood, holding the handle in my hand (it detached from the dish), watching all this really tasty-looking Eggs Benedict fly across the floor. Oops. And I had really wanted Eggs Benny. So I turned to Hubster (dropping the handle as I did so and kicking it under the table), and saying loudly, "Look what you did! What a mess you made!" The poor man just stood there with his mouth hanging open, not quite knowing what to do. The staff reassured him that it was okay and not to worry about it. He just shook his head and moved on. Heh.

I managed to make it through the rest of the line without mishap, got to our table, sat down on the bench seat, and began to slide across. I also dragged the tablecloth with me as I scooted along. That wouldn't have been a problem until I arched my back to smooth my dress under me. Not a smart move. I whacked the underside of the table with my ample womaness and sent the orange juice flying (they were already on a downward slide from the tablecloth being in motion). Oops. Of course, my babies thought it was hilarious and began giggling. Anything to entertain my grands.

Once all that was sorted out, we began eating and gabbing. Then my little ones had to go potty; I think they were just bored and wanted to get up. So I volunteered to take them, slid out (everyone held on to the tablecloth), grabbed their hands, and took them to the bathroom. I was right. They didn't have to go. But I did, so all three of us crammed into the stall. I did my business (they were fascinated by the tattoo on my belly, which was a cute little frog on a lily pad when I weighed 110 and is now a huge warty toad at my present weight; they kept poking it to watch it jiggle), pulled up my drawers, and we all washed our hands and headed back to the table.

I was so proud. People were looking at us and smiling at my little ones. They were cute as little buttons, dressed alike and carrying little purses on their arms, each one holding one of my hands, all of us looking alike (me just being an older, more wrinkled version of them), then people pointing and giggling, then stares... it's not often you see twins with a bald and tattooed grandma, so I was just as proud as can be of my gorgeous granddaughters and not caring if people thought I was strange, and we marched through the lobby, then the dining room, and finally to our table. The people at the tables near ours actually put down their silverware and stared agape at the parade of beauty in front of them, then put their napkins up to their faces. I actually heard people laughing, and one man was laughing so hard that he was crying. What the fuck? How dare he laugh at my babies! I seated my little munchkins, bending over so I could put their napkins in their laps, and then sat down myself.

Hmm. The seat was awfully cold.

Then it dawned on me why people were laughing. My dress was stuck in my Power Panties in the back, showing my ass and thighs in all their saggy glory. Not only that, I was trailing a flowing ribbon of toilet paper which was also stuck in my undies.

Ohhhh noooooooooooo.

I yanked said dress out of my ass as quickly as I could, balled up the toilet paper and kicked it under the table, and tried to look like nothing was wrong. But even my family was laughing at me. Thank god brunch was over and we could leave. So we got up (I made sure my dress was out of my ass this time), I grabbed Lily's hand, and we RAN out of the place (I told her it was a game). We waited outside until the rest of the family made it out (my mother was also weeping and dabbing at her eyes, which caused her to not see too well - that could account for why she walked right into a post), said our good-byes, and hightailed it out of there.

Happy Easter my ass.

Literally.