Little Stories: Weather and Clothes Are Not Always Reliable

Once upon a time, in the distant years of my teens, I took the public service bus into town for some shopping.  I wore one of my favorite dresses: a black crepe with small white dots in the mini fashion of the time.  When it came time to catch the bus home, I waited on a little triangular park-like island, with heavily-trafficked streets on the three sides.  It began to rain.

I really don't know if anyone wears crepe dresses anymore, but this is a material that doesn't like water.  It shrinks.  Actually, more like shrivels.  So it was that as the rain came down and I waited for the bus amid swirling traffic, the hem of my dress began to rise toward my neck as it shrank.  The nylon slip I was wearing beneath it began to descend toward my feet as it grew heavier with water.  No amount of tugging on the dress helped.  At all.

By the time the bus arrived, the driver opened the door to a girl wearing a black dotted bolero, a shrug really.  Over a long white skirt (thank heaven and lucky stars the slip at least grew down).  The driver managed an admirable control of his emotions and didn't visibly react.  I don't know what went on with the other passengers since I was nearly blinded by mortification.  When I arrived home, my mother was on the phone in the kitchen and broke into unnecessarily excessive laughter when she saw me.

The moral of the story, if you need one, is that life can be unpredictable and you can find yourself in some very dicey situations that might not be dangerous, but which are survivable with a measure of good-humored resilience.  Think of all the laughter we miss if we can’t laugh at ourselves!