Everyone in their 20s has that one year where it seems everybody they ever did a keg stand with or almost got pregnant gets married. For me, that year was when I was 25. I had five weddings within one year. Despite many drunk conversations promising otherwise, I wasn’t in any of them.
Not being in the wedding means there’s no drama. You show up, you hug the bride and groom and you take advantage of the open bar. Or at least that’s how it should be. When my best friend from college married the girl I basically introduced him to, there was drama before the wedding even started, when I was shopping for something to wear.
Fully intending to dress to impress, I ventured off to the mall to find the perfect shirt and tie for the special occasion.
After more than an hour of mixing and matching everything the store had, I finally found a winner. The slim fit sizes were mixed with the modern fit sizes, so I kept trying on articles of clothing that didn’t fit. Then, right as I was pulling down my pants to finally change and leave, someone pounded on the fitting room door.
“Open up right now,” yelled someone on the other side.
For some reason, I complied. I must have had low self esteem that day from struggling to find clothes that fit right.
I opened the door, with my pants half-up and boxer briefs tightly gripping my package, to find a mall cop and the sales associate standing in front of my dressing room.
The sales associate called mall security because she thought I was shoplifting.
“We heard you were taking a long time in here. I wanted to see what was going on,” the mall cop told me.
A few customers stood there, staring at my package, my hairy legs and a mall cop accusing me of shoplifting.
I couldn’t believe the sales associate thought I was trying to shoplift. How embarrassing! I’d never shoplift — unless you consider lying about being a mall employee for a discount on your Auntie Anne’s pretzel shoplifting. In that case, I’m guilty.
Since the sales associate was as fat as Ricki Lake was before she lost all that weight so she could get a talk show, I assumed she’d have empathy for someone trying to find the right size in a dressing room. But instead, I seemed to have bothered her. Was she in a hurry for me to leave? Was I delaying her from going home and eating her way into a diabetic coma?
I was so pissed that I didn’t want to buy anything and give the story any of my money, but I did, of course, because I had to leave for my friend’s wedding the next morning.
After I left, I walked by the store twice, flipping off the sales associate — with my thumb extended, too. Her jaw dropped, probably for the first time without something edible entering it.
Sorry, Mom and Dad, for flipping off the fat girl who called the mall cop on me for taking too long in the dressing room. It was immature of me, for sure. Sometimes in life, it’s best to take the high road and keep your mouth shut. But other times, I’ve learned, you just have to give someone the middle finger.