In Hypocrite in a Pouffy

In Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress, the author, who is at first skeptical when she goes in to find a dress for herself, eventually likens David’s Bridal to a revolution of sorts—a place where women can come in and try on many different styles of dresses in her exact size. I had a similar experience when I went in Denver, in that it wasn’t the horrific onslaught of floof and cheese that I thought it was going to be. Unfortunately, I had such a pleasant experience trying on dresses in Denver, that I was ill-prepared for my venture into the New York store in Queens to make my final purchase several months ago. It was very bad. Like the Courtney Love of bridal stores.

I thought picking up the dress would be a piece of cake. In fact, that is what I told Krista, who came with me: This should be a piece of cake. We walked into the store during one of their sales (hint for all you brides: there is ALWAYS a sale) and store employees flying this way and that way. Not in an efficient way, mind you. It was more like pinball, where one would start off with a task in mind, but then bump into a different job that needed to be done and head off in another direction, bump, bump, bump, all the way to the back of the store, where they apparently start afresh and roll back happily to the front of the store with zero tasks accomplished.

Krista and I just kept plugging in the quarters, sending one lady back after another, under the assumption that ONE of them would have to make it to the back room and come back with my dress. Nothing. We began to think there was something terrible happening to all the ladies entering the back room. Rabid wolves with a taste for shitty service. After about an hour, I got a bit snippy with one saleslady who told us the back room is “crazy.”

Liz: Well, the dresses are alphabetized, right?
S: Yeah, but they’re packed really tightly in there.
L: But they’re alphabetized, right? I mean, there’s only so many places my dress can be.
S: But it’s packed. Really tight. They have to go through each one and it’s really tight.
L: But it’s ALPHABETIZED. You look at one or two and then you figure it out.
S: But they’re really tightly packed.

Finally? One lady, who at this point has just overheard our frustrations asks simply, “Last name?” and reemerges about one minute later with my dress. Bonus ball! We win.

Anyway, how were your holidays? My Easter started off with me waking up all disoriented because I got confused and thought it was daylight savings time. I also got to wake up to the very exciting treat of finding a large bottle of olive oil smashed to bits all over the kitchen floor (thanks, Max!). Trust me when I tell you there is little else less pleasing than trying to clean oil and broken glass off your floor on a Sunday morning.

[insert massive gorging of candy and Easter viewing of “The American Astronaut”: rock!]

By Sunday night, I was sure again that it was daylight saving time and set all my clocks forward. You could practically hear all the farmers having a good laugh at me when I rolled into my office an hour early this morning only to find that it is, in fact, daylight saving time in EUROPE, a continent I do not, in fact, live on.

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