Bless the Dress

When I was eighteen, my mother went ballistic at me for going braless on a date. Hey, it was the early 70s and that was the style for hippie-wannabes like me. Mom and I didn’t have too many fights. I mostly behaved until about 17, and then usually snuck my bad behavior out of the house without discovery. But this time Mom caught me and got Dad involved. They said some things parents shouldn’t say to their daughter, and I’m sure I said things a daughter shouldn’t say to her parents. Not a night we talk about when we reminisce around the dinner table.

And I am over it.

But I was reminded of the event Sunday as a pretty, young girl, maybe 15-16 years old, sat in the church pew ahead of me. She had a knockout figure—a trifle full for today’s bone-thin standards, filling out her Jessica Rabbit sheath dress and then some. The dress was skimpy on both ends—strapless and mid-thigh, with ruching (a kind of gathering/tucking) at the hips, in case your eyes needed help noticing that part. I assume the conservatively-dressed woman sitting beside her was her mother. As I told my Facebook friends, I didn’t know who to slap first.

I’m not a fan of strapless or even spaghetti straps in church. I think many males have trouble following a sermon if the female in front of them is sticking her thumbs in the bodice of her dress to yank it up over her boobs again and again. Or if lingerie straps are peeking out. Or missing. Actually, I have a whole list of church no-nos: see-through clothes, mini skirts, skimpy shorts, tight tops. Also, if your full skirt has a tendency to get stuck where the sun don’t shine, wear a slip! The people behind your behind don’t want that image stuck in their heads as they rise up to sing to God.

I know short, tight and sexy is the style, but just like back in the early 70s, just because it’s in style doesn’t mean your parents should let you wear it. Especially to church.

So, gentle readers, tell me how you feel. And if my parents somehow see this, I swear I don’t go braless in public anymore.

Public Toilet Dreams

I have deeply paranoid dreams about public toilets and huge, maze-like hotels. Recently, the two combined forces in a dream that had me trying to find my room, racing against a deadline, and dealing with terrible public toilets, as well. That’s just not fair! If one of those nefarious squirrels from another bad dream had made an appearance, I probably would not have survived to whine about it all.

I used to ask people if they have public toilet dreams. Too many people drew away as if to escape the fearful darkness that they must have thought emanated from my being, so I quit asking. But I know I’m not the only one. Just Google “toilet dreams” and see what I mean.

Some of my classics? A row of stalls with the doors cut so high that as you sit, you’re exposed from the waist down. An outhouse lying on its back, so you have to lie on your back to go. (Think about that for a second. Gross, eh?) A huge bathroom built like a stadium, with toilets in ascending rows, and no privacy anywhere.

The literature on the subject (and by literature I mean Google hits) says that toilet dreams indicate feelings of embarrassment and vulnerability. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

The maze of hotel rooms stems, I’m certain, from my inability to find my way around in the world. Coming out of a restaurant bathroom I’ll turn the wrong direction every time. Before the invention of GPS I knew only one way to get somewhere. Or maybe not even that. One memorable time prior to cell phones I was trying to drive from one mall to another without going to “home base” first. No matter what I did, I’d end up where, instead of the road I swear showed on my map, I’d be facing a lake. After three tries, I found a payphone, called John and said, “You’re going to have to move the house. I can’t find you.”

Any recurring dreams in your life? And all you public-toilet-dreamers, I know you’re out there!