The month of May pretty much nailed me to the wall.

Teacher Appreciation Week, school stuff, Bear’s birthday, party planning, field days, prepping for EOG tests, helping T-man prepare for his black belt test…I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise that I avoided dealing with needing something to wear for a friend’s wedding until two days before the event.  But it was.

This is practically unheard of in my life.  I keep an insanely detailed calendar, one that keeps track of commitments and deadlines so that (conceptually) no balls get dropped along the way.  I’ve been called a little OCD on this front.  (Can you even be a “little” OCD?)  Well, this ball dropped hard.  It was Friday, the wedding was Sunday, and I didn’t have a single thing that seemed appropriate to wear.

That’s how I found myself wandering into the nearby outlet stores on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend in search of a dress.  On the plus side?  Great sales.  In the negative column?   I was completely screwed if I didn’t find something.  And I don’t shop well under pressure.

I winged a prayer up for good shopping karma (that’s not a frivolous thing to pray for, right?) and plowed onward.  I headed straight for a store that I’d admired whenever I walked by — they always had really nice dresses in the window, so I figured my chances were pretty good there.  I’d never been inside, though, so I was a bit unprepared for the experience.

First of all, this place is a big old YES on the dress front.  They had a bazillion dresses there, from pretty to fancy to super fancy.  I’m guessing it’s probably a popular prom shopping destination (since those girls dress way nicer now than I did for my dances).  But anyway, I say I was unprepared because, frankly, it was a really nice shop.  And in my regular life I’m kind of a Target/Old Navy/TJ Maxx girl who’s recently forayed into the Stitch Fix world (which is, p.s., awesome).  I’m not exactly a boutique shopper.

But, despite the outlet store label, this shopping experience provided me with what felt like a personal shopping assistant.  She helped me pull dresses once I described what I needed, checked for sizes that weren’t on the floor, brought me shoes to use in the fitting room, and checked back in with me periodically to see how things were going.  This is way more attention than I’m used to, but it turned out great in the end because I found (thank you, baby Jesus) a dress to wear to that wedding.

There was only one problem, and it’s pertaining to that uncomfortable scale surprise I blogged about last week.  I’d been dabbling in the shape wear arena but decided it was time to get serious, so I marched off to the Hanes outlet with my dress in tow thinking okay, not exactly fun, but at least I have my dress to try with this stuff.

For those of you who don’t know — LUCKY YOU — shape wear is lycra-based undergarments that would be the modern day equivalent to the corset and such.  Useful, I suppose, but kind of torturous at the same time.  The kind of thing that forces you to choose between looking slim under your clothes or being able to eat and breathe freely.

At any rate, this is how I found myself in a dressing room at Hanes, arms filled with shape wear products (because I believe in only getting undressed once, trying everything conceivable on, then getting the hell out), ready to find the magic undergarment that would make me look like I’d miraculously lost ten (okay, five) pounds in two days.

The first thing I have to say is that my time in that fitting room was like an aerobic workout.  Pushing, twisting, and forcing my body into this insane fabric strained my (ridiculously weak t-rex) arms and forced me into bizarre contortions that defied all logic.  I couldn’t even fasten two of the pieces because I couldn’t force my arms into the weird backward angle required to hook them.  By the time I was finished my hair had frizzed out of my ponytail, I was slightly sweaty, and I’d yanked one of my hoop earrings out by mistake.

I ended up leaving the store with two pieces that I figured would probably work.  At the very least I’d be able to get into them when it was time to go to the wedding, so I counted that as a success. Whether or not they actually strip 5-10 pounds off my silhouette remains to be seen.

It’s funny…I’m pretty sure none of the men attending the wedding are frantically shoving their bodies into spanx.  Wonder what that says about me.