My husband and I are headed to Florida later this month, and I cannot wait.
It’s been three years since I’ve dug my toes in the sand and felt that ocean breeze. I don’t count a little beach in Mississippi that, frankly, was rocky and ugly, and the water wasn’t clear and pretty like the Emerald Coast. (Redneck Riviera, if you prefer.)
The only good thing about that beach in Mississippi was we found a good retractable dog leash someone had left. (There wasn’t a soul around with a dog — we looked.)
The big hurdle to getting ready to go to Florida was finding a new bathing suit. I quickly surveyed my old ones. The clasp was broken on one and possibly could be repaired; one had a sunscreen stain; the other was worn out.
I’d had them for years. If you can look back in pictures from 10 years ago and see the same swimsuit, it’s time for a new one.
I waded into the crowded swimsuit department at the mall with the other terrified women. I saw a woman from Conway. Our eyes met, and we laughed. “Why do we do this to ourselves?” she asked. I didn’t feel much sympathy — she weighs about 90 pounds.
She told me she’d found a cover-up, and she was starting from there.
I finally got my bearings and started picking separates. I am, as they say in the magazines, a pear. One size does not fit all my body.
I grabbed a stack of bathing suits and pulled my favorite trick. Instead of going to the crowded dressing room in the swimsuit area, I went across the “road” to a different department. I made my husband park his behind in a chair immediately outside the door with strict instructions not to LEAVE.
It’s one thing to go on the beach with 100 people, but walking out of a dressing room for the world to see is another. However, some crown-wearing young women were having a little parade to model the swimsuits and didn’t seem to mind at all the stares they got. Thanks a lot.
I tried on bathing suits, opened the door and got his opinion. My husband is not one of those men who has to approve of what I’m buying, but as long as he was with me, I welcomed a second opinion. With some swimsuits, it was obvious. I didn’t even open the door.
I learned years ago that I am not a one-piece swimsuit woman. I wish I were, but they just don’t fit right. I am smushed in the wrong places, hanging out in others. My torso is too long, too something.
I did like a one-shoulder, hot-pink number, but not enough to buy it. In case you haven’t shopped for swimsuits in a few years, the cost per square inch is equivalent to diamonds.
My one point of humiliation was when the salesgirl asked if she could help me. I asked if she had the bikini top in a smaller size. She came back and told me that was the smallest size.
Sizes mean nothing in bathing suits. If I got the size in a swimsuit that I wear in clothes, I might as well go to the nude beach.
I ended up buying two bathing suits. I will not have to go through that ordeal for at least another five years.
I know I won’t be the best-looking person on the beach, but having been there, I know I won’t be the worst. Some of those people needed a second opinion.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.