The Dressing Room On the Right

Yesterday at Goodwill, I was looking through the vast selection of pants, diligently examining each pair to see if any of them might be hiding a guarantee somewhere that said, "Once you put these pants on, your body will be transformed into that of a trim, shapely college student."

In case you're wondering, I didn't seem to uncover any garments in that category. However, I did manage to find plenty that were guaranteed to transform my body in that of a non-trim, 47-year old woman whose "sands of time" had all sunk to the bottom! Amazing how that works!

At any rate, as I continued my ongoing searching for that perfect, transformative pair of jeans, I noticed a little drama going on at the two dressing rooms near me. Every couple minutes, a different person would go up to the dressing room doors and knock. The various transient occupants of the dressing room on the left always responded; however, each time someone knocked on the dressing room to the right, there would be no respnse.

Then the "knocker" would try the door. It would be locked. They would knock again. And get no response. (And it wasn't one of those doors you could look under to check for the evidence of feet.)

I thought, "Okay, some kid has locked the door and closed it behind him, or some person with a warped sense of humor has played a mean little trick on all the frantic ladies lined up to try on their bargains and has put one of the dressing rooms out of commission."

After I had spent another fifteen minutes or so looking through the pants, I took my collection of clothes over to the dressing room area. A lady waiting there told me that her granddaughter was in the room on the left and she wasn't sure what was going on with the room on the right.

I went over and knocked. Loudly.

No answer.

I tried the door.

Locked.

I knocked again.

No response.

Now let me just say before I go any further that I am an introverted, Type B personality. I have never been one to march in, take over, command troops, fling orders, or issue edicts. However, when it came to trying on bargains at Goodwill, my little ol' Type B personality started to slowly shrivel away and my infrequently used Type A personality began poking out its head. Because I'm telling you, trying on stuff at Goodwill is important! It is worthy of Type A-ness!

And so I stated to myself in an uncharacteristically choleric, bossy sort of way, "Well! I just need to go find a Goodwill employee! Right now! And she needs to come over here with me! Immediately! And she needs to unlock this door! Instantly!"

(It's kind of fun being a Type A personality occasionally, even if you're the only one who knows you're doing it!)

I was just about to take my rarely bossy self off in the direction of an employee and put my plan into action when, lo and behold, the door to the dressing room on the right slowly opened.

The lady beside me joined me in a stare of mutual curiosity as we prepared to discover what kind of person had been silently squirreled away inside a Goodwill dressing room for fifteen minutes.

It turned out to be a lady. A normal, intelligent, non-alarming looking lady.

As I watched her walk calmly away, I harrumphed to myself in continued Type A fashion, "WHY in the world didn't she respond when half a dozen different people knocked on her door? WHAT could possibly be her reasoning behind that? WHAT is going on here?"

And then suddenly it hit me. "Oh dear. Maybe she's deaf. Maybe she never even heard any of those knocks."

I stood there and shuddered as I thought about how close I had come to calling in the cavalry and summoning the forces of Goodwill so that her door could be unlocked and flung open. Right in the middle of her previously private trying-on session.

Yikes.

I uttered a small prayer of thanks as I went into her newly vacated dressing room and you can be sure that when anyone knocked on my door, I responded very loudly and very clearly.

Because the forces of Goodwill flinging open my dressing room door while I'm displaying my quasi-flabby, unfit, middle aged body is not a happy thought. Trust me on that.

What about you? Do you have any interesting, embarrassing, or scintillating dressing room stories? Do tell!

_______________________________

Coming soon! Pineapple ponderments.

Trash Bags And Lighthouses

(Oops. I thought I had posted this earlier today and just got home at 5:30 to discover that I hadn't. So. Here it is--a little late.)

Yesterday, I was unhappily reminded of the distressing fact that last September, due to my weight loss, I gave away most of my fall/winter wardrobe.

In the past, I've always looked forward to the changing of the seasons because I would pack up all of my outgoing season stuff in trash bags (yes, that's where I store out of season clothes; classy, I know) and then happily rummage through the trash bags containing the incoming season's clothes and feel like I was getting a whole new wardrobe because I hadn't seen those clothes in six months. (Was that a run on sentence, or what?)

Well, yesterday, I poked around looking for any trash bags with my name on them and found a whole lot of naught! So I asked Steve to look up in the attic, thinking maybe I'd stored them up there. He also found a wide variety of naught.

After he had finished his attic foray, I trailed forlornly through the house in an ongoing fruitless search, wondering if I had possibly overlooked the bags somewhere or maybe inadvertently stored them in the oven, or some such thing. (Remember, I was an inveterate "oven storer" when we lived in RVs.)

But alas. No Trash Bags Containing Becky Clothes have shown themselves. The house is filled with naught in the trash bag department. And so today, I shall take myself over to Goodwill and began to rebuild my winter wardrobe.

I think I recall having this same Trash Bag Clothing Crisis in the spring, too, but that wasn't quite as crisis-esque because at that time, I wasn't a pastor's wife and so I didn't really need any sort of wardrobe, beyond some capri pants and a few blouses to wear to our (casual) home church.

Oh well. At least Wardrobe Rebuilding gives me a legitimate reason to shop!


And now that we are finished collectively mourning my missing trash bags, let me answer a few more questions that have come in.



Q. Will Sarah keep on going to Duke for her medical care?

A. Duke is about four hours away from Manteo as opposed to being one hour away from Smithfield. Because of that, we'll only drive over there if there's something that is cancer treatment-related.

She was actually due to go there in December for her once-a-year, post transplant studies, but I contacted them and asked if she could have those done in late October instead, so that we didn't have to drive so far. So we've been scheduled to go to Duke the last Thursday in October, right before we make our move to Manteo.

Although I'll be finding a pediatrician for her in the Manteo area for her "regular" check ups, she also sees an endocrinologist, a pulmonologist, a dermatologist, a cardiologist, as well as neuropsych people. I'm not yet sure what I'll do about all of those folks.


Q. Do you know what the images of pineapples used throughout the South mean? (Asked by Lynie.)

A. I don't! So Lynie, when you fill me in on the answer, I'll share it with everyone!


Q. Is is hard to find a rental that will accept dogs?

A. Thankfully, the lady from the church who is letting us use her small vacation cottage on the weekends in October is allowing us to bring Snowy. However, as we've been looking around for a long term rental, we have run across a good many that don't allow pets.

But since Snowy is a valued member of our family, we'll just have to look a little harder!


Q. What was Snowy's reaction to your fall?

A. I really don't think he was aware that I was in much distress since I didn't make any loud, "distressed" noises. Probably from his perspective, it was like one minute I was standing beside him, the next minute, I was lying beside him. No biggie. His doggie brain doesn't understand that when women suddenly topple over like large leaning Towers of Pisa, it is NOT such a good thing.


Q. How are the three girls doing who lost their mother recently? (This answer came from Meagan, Nathan's girlfriend and the pastor's daughter at the church the family attends.)

A. The two older girls and the husband seem to be coping better than the youngest daughter; she is having a really hard time of it since was the closest to her mother. The church family has just really taken them in and loved on the entire family so I think that has really helped. When you think about it just keep them in your prayers.

And now, one final Manteo story and I will close.

Last Saturday, we were looking at a possible home to rent, owned by a lady in the church who lived in that house while she was growing up.

She told us that she remembers one particular day many years ago when a knock came on the door of that house. When she answered it, she saw a young boy who lived nearby who had lost his dog. He asked if they would please keep their eyes open for the dog because he really wanted to find it.

That little boy was twelve-year old Andy Griffith, who still lives very close to that house we're considering renting.

Nice to have such interesting history all around.

And just so you can picture a little easier where all of this Smith/Manteo Life is taking place, here's a map of the area. Roanoke Island is in the middle with two bridges onto the island and one bridge off. The strip of islands to the east of Roanoke Island is called The Outer Banks. If you drive north past Nags Head about 10 miles, you will come to Kitty Hawk, where the Wrigtht Brothers first flew.

If you drive south for about an hour, you'll get to Hatteras, where one of the most well recognized lighthouses in the country is.

So that's your geography/history lesson for the day!

Okay. I'm off to Goodwill. Wish me happy hunting!