Lesson: don’t try and squeeze your body into a dress that’s too small

WE were invited to a Black Tie Ball last weekend. It sounds a lot more glamorous than it actually was. It was a business event with never ending speeches and people on their best behaviour. Booooring!

I refused to buy a new dress. Very unlike me. Perhaps I’m finally getting sense in my old age and realising that buying something you’ll only wear once is ludicrous. So I decided to squeeze myself into one I’d worn to the same event about five years ago.

Obviously it didn’t fit me. Life isn’t that simple. I engaged the help of the 16 year old to get me into it. ‘Mam. That dress is too small,’ he said after a feeble attempt to zip me up. ‘Shut up and just zip me up!’ I hissed, holding my breath and praying to God it would work.

‘ There’s bits of you coming out all over the shop,’ he continued, fiddling with the zip and finally giving up. ‘Some help you are!’ I sighed, sitting down to wait for Himself to come home and save the day. I couldn’t even have a cup of tea and a biscuit for fear my girth would increase marginally and cause me to burst out of the guna.

‘Oh! You look lovely,’ he says as he comes through the door an hour later. I turn around to expose my gaping back. ‘Jaysus……is it supposed to be like that?’

‘No it’s bloody not! And it’s like this, unless you manage to get me into this dress Cinderella is not going to the ball!’ He rolled up his sleeves and got to work. It took him a good five minutes to manhandle me into the dress but finally I was zipped up. There was definitely more boobage spilling out than I would have liked but I was in it and that was all that mattered.

Except I forgot about the dinner. The actual dinner, that is. And I was starving. So I ate my starter....and his starter, my main and my dessert forgetting that the dress had been too small before a single morsel had passed my lips.

I decided a trip to the ladies was in order to try and rearrange myself. I gathered up my skirt and made to sit down on the loo when I heard a very definite rip. I tried to turn around to look and there was another rip. Suddenly I’m sitting there with no back in my dress.

And no scarf or coat to cover it up. Or any phone to ring for assistance. I am well and truly bloody stuck! It takes them half an hour to come looking for me at which point I’m cold, fed up and in dire need of a drink.

Himself, having imbibed a few after dinner drinks in my absence thinks it’s hilarious and after getting my coat for me proceeds to tell anyone who’ll listen that I burst out of my dress.

And the moral to this story in case you’re wondering?........

Just buy the bloody dress!

SUDDENLY I’M SITTING THERE WITH NO BACK IN MY DRESS. AND NO SCARF OR COAT TO COVER IT UP...OR ANY PHONE TO RING FOR ASSISTANCE