Nightmare in Target

I went with Anna to Target today (whoa! big surprise there!), because her very existence depended on her finding something new to wear and my very existence depended on my tracking down a certain skirt I spotted on Big Mama's Fashion Friday - a skirt that would actually reach almost mid-calf. I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't think most women in their forties look too good in skirts that show their knees, or that wrinkled skin above the knees, or (heaven forbid) their thighs. Just sayin'...

So, anyway, I found the skirt (miracles never cease, and if you go looking for it, please note that the sizes are way off - size down) and headed for the dressing room, where the old ladies in charge look at me suspiciously every single time I walk in there with (gasp!) clothing to try on. Entering my little cubicle (it's time to start the scary music now), I did not realize, as I prepared to try on the Skirt of Wonders, that there were 2 (count them, 2) full-length mirrors in the room, facing each other. (Crescendo)

Folks, I believe this room would be perfect for concerned relatives to hold Weight Watchers interventions for family fatties. I was treated to a full, uncensored view of the backs of my legs and butt (and boy, am I grateful for this blog's "no-photo" policy); 6 pregnancies have not been kind to the veins in my legs (to put it very mildly), and apparently, no one has notified the backs of my thighs that I am near my goal weight. In desperation (and avoidance), I moved my eyes upward for relief and saw the backs of my arms - only, they weren't my arms, they were some old lady's arms. If I hadn't been half-naked, I would have run out of there screaming at that point.

Where did all those folds of skin above my elbows come from? Was there some sort of exercise I was supposed to be doing all these years to prevent those? Why didn't somebody tell me?

The skirt looked nice, though. Thank goodness for clothes - it is beyond me why anyone would want to live in a nudist colony. Oh, and you ladies know that trick where you sort of pull the skin up on your thighs to see if you'd look better with a little liposuction? It makes the veins stand out more.

At that point, if I hadn't had my new haircut to save some tattered shreds of my self-esteem, impaling myself on one of those cheap plastic hangers would probably have seemed like a good idea....

I would like to stop discussing this now. Instead, I will wonder why, when David and I finally visited our (grossly neglected) community garden plot yesterday evening and discovered a veritable jungle of weeds, the words "poison ivy" never popped into my head. Because I am certainly thinking them now, as I sit up at 4 AM, blogging and trying to ignore the way my forearms are itching. I'm not sure weeding that plot by hand will be the way to go this year. I'm thinking a flamethrower may be a reasonable alternative. That is, after we subdue the growth a bit with a (long-handled) machete. And some napalm...