Overall, It Was A Fun Day

One of my earliest memories of Melissa's temperament revealing itself is the overalls hunt.

Melissa was in 8th or 9th grade at the time. She had a crush on an older boy at school. He was on the basketball team, I think, and she was going to go to one of his games. They were friends, but she was hoping to make him realize that he wanted her to be more than just his friend (which, of course, he did. Not many people in this world have the kryptonite to fight the power of Melissa).

To understand Melissa, you have to understand the preparation that goes into her look. She has an image in her head of what she wants to look like, for each and every event in her life. Now realize, this isn't about vanity. It's about the puzzle. About piecing together appropriateness, beauty, fashion, and creativity, and coming out with a perfect picture. It's an opportunity to probe and invent, and those opportunities can NEVER be passed up.

When Melissa is preparing for an event (and you must realize, "event" to Melissa probably means something different than "event" for you. Event for Melissa can mean lunch at Chilis with her husband), she usually comes up with a look, and she gives the look a name. The name will be her starting point for finding the outfit. Fresh Spring Tearoom Casual, Nautical Chic, Dressed Down In A Rich Way, Miami Beach Sexy Meets Bostonian Academic, oh yes, she's done them all.

For this particular event, she had decided to go with Casual Yet Softly Pretty. She wanted to wear a heathered mauve turtleneck, with a pair of overalls, and wear her long hair down and soft and curled (do you see Casual Yet Softly Pretty now??). She also went into detail about how she was going to apply her mascara to create the perfect spacing between each lash, but I will spare you that detail. Your head is probably already spinning, and I don't want to be the cause of it flying across the room.

She owned the heathered mauve turtleneck, but the overalls that she had weren't quite right. How were they not right, you ask? Please, don't get me started. The pockets on the butt weren't low enough, the shade of denim was last season's medium distressed blue, the width of the leg opening wasn't wide enough to differentiate them from farmer overalls, I could go on and on.

Obviously, a shopping trip was necessary. I was of driving age then, and had a car, so I picked her up and we went to the Granite Run Mall one morning. I remember this day so vividly, it was my first shopping experience with Melissa, and as everything is with Melissa, it was a trial by fire. Ain't no easing into things, you'd better be prepared for being thrown into the deep end....

It started much like any shopping trip for two young girls would start. We walked into a store, looked at some overalls, and she picked up a few pair. Then we went into a dressing room (the handicapped one, of course; her personality won't fit into a regular sized one). That was where my schooling began...

Watching Melissa try on clothes must be like watching Michelangelo paint. She puts the outfit on (because you only try on in outfits, you never just try on one piece of clothing), and then the magic begins. Every angle is examined. The fit of every square inch of fabric is analyzed. Discussions are had about long term use of the item, how it will mesh with other things in the wardrobe, graphs are made to determine price vs. quality, Powerpoint presentations are given to assess whether the article of clothing in question could be called a "classic piece" or a "fad item".

In this first store, she found a pair that passed many of her tests. I assumed she'd then buy the pair. Oh how wrong I was. Instead, she filed that pair away in her brain, and we moved on to the next store, where the process was repeated. After trying all of the overalls in the mall, we then had to go back to the stores that had the overalls that were in her top 10, and retry them.

When I say we were in that mall for 6 hours, I am not exaggerating. When I say we went into every store that might possibly have sold overalls, I am not exaggerating. When I say my brain had turned into a rotting smelly carcass with maggots slithering in and out of the crevices, I am not exaggerating.

She finally picked a pair, although as I recall she really did "settle". They weren't exactly perfect in her mind. But she remembered a great pair of shoes she had, that would be perfect for the outfit and would hopefully balance out the flaws in the overalls.


And of course, she ended up looking like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, as usual.