SOME things you know. Like don’t drink coffee for at least an hour after washing your teeth because it’ll taste like gun powder, or what I presume gun powder taste like.
Or, don’t wear anything black if you intend playing with bleach, things like that.
Some things you don’t know – like, don’t wear a maxi-dress when you go shopping.
Why, I hear none of you ask? Well, let me tell you.
There I was in the supermarket doing my thing. I do so enjoy the supermarket: all that food in one place, it’s like my spiritual home.
Anyhoo, there I was meandering through the aisles when, all of a sudden, I note a cool breeze wafting across my chest area.
“Oh what’s this,” I ask myself, mildly surprised by the sensation. I look down and find my maxi dress has unexpectedly travelled in a southerly direction partially exposing a garment which is not meant to be exposed, unless you are that way inclined, of course.
“Shit!” I say, much, much louder than necessary.
I go to yank the dress up, but it won’t budge.
I begin to panic.
“What’s going on? What’s going on?” I scream, this time remembering to do it in my head. As I attempt to protect my modesty, I notice the left side of my dress has somehow become entangled in the wheel of the trolley.
No-one ever told me such a thing could happen. I’d never heard tell of it in my life; this was a new and utterly bizarre experience, which had left me both exposed … and trapped.
I look around to see how many people are pointing and laughing, but aside from a middle-aged woman who is clearly torn between the hard choice of Special K or Corn Flakes, there is no-one in the aisle.
She has either seen my struggles and is ignoring me, or is so entrenched in her own dilemma that she is oblivious to the desperate situation I’m in.
I lean down to try and untangle myself but the dress is firmly wedged around the wheel, and no amount of tugging seems to move it.
I’m standing in the middle of the supermarket with my bra exposed, my dress caught in a trolley wheel and I can’t free myself.
“I’m going to have to call for help,” I think, quite rationally. “I’m actually going to have to ask someone to help me. They won’t be able to get the dress out either, so they are going to make me take it off and I’ll have to stand naked in the aisle like some sort of stripper gone wrong.”
I realise that this could not be any more humiliating.
I’d heard somewhere sometime that when you find yourself in a desperate situation you should count to ten and calmly assess your options.
This I do. I surmise that if tugging at the dress won’t work, the only other option is to see if rolling the wheel backwards or forwards will free it.
I’m amazed at my clarity of thought and give myself an imaginary pat on the back.
So I roll the trolley forward a bit. Clearly, this does not work, so I try to roll the trolley back at bit – this also does not work.
I look around again and note that there are at least three more people in the aisle now and everyone is ignoring me. I feel very alone and also slightly angry.
“For f**k sake, I can’t stand here all day in my bra like an idiot,” I mutter, and then I decide that I will free myself from this awful predicament no matter what. I don’t need other people to help me, I’m fine, I decide.
I’d had enough of the rational thinking by then, so I resort back to the tugging. I tug and I tug and I tug and then all of a sudden… rrriiiippppp. The dress is officially dead.