Bad News: Swimsuit SZN Is Upon Us
Toast ma goats – it’s been a long winter in the Northeast & I’ve left a series of open ended gym memberships in my now substantial, Tastykake-bolstered wake. I’m also red-toned yet nearly transparent and my skin bruises easily because I eat too much Chef Boyardee or something. As a result, I look like a neglected dalmatian mated with a soft, veal calf.
Seems like the perfect time to go swimsuit shopping.
Man or woman, if you’re a normal human being who does not have their shit together physically, you know how much this sucks.
Am I under an eerie, flourescent interrogation bulb or in a Boscov’s dressing room? The speakers droning out obscure 90s soul jams tells me it’s the latter. When I left my apartment I thought I was looking pretty good. I even made an Instagram video about some new earrings that was secretly just meant to show off my cute vibez. Now in the harsh lights I’m noticing a very obvious wizard beard that I was previously unaware of.
I stroke my beard and look at the swimsuits before me. They are from the only 2 ends of the spectrum that department stores seem to have for women. ‘Suits for 1,000 year-old grandmas’ & ‘suits for kewl, young smokeshowz’. Luckily I am a kewl, young smokeshow at heart so I try those on first.
The kiddos in Taiwan must have been asleep at their sewing machines because I can’t find enough fabric where the butt goes. Standing there, I lament this over Twitter & am quickly told, ‘No… buns-out is very in this summer’. That would be great if I had a tight set of ciabatta rolls, but I’m working with two large, oddly shaped chunks of Challah here. Maybe that’s why they keep Hollisters’ so dark; for ladies like me who still want to believe… Alas, on to plan B. (Not the kind you gotta pay for at CVS on Sunday mornings.)
I try to take one of the 1,000 year-old grandma suits off the hanger but my hands get all tangled up in the ruched folds. It feels like I’m engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a Shar-Pei, and I’m losing. Once it’s all sorted out it looks like I’m wearing a crumpled bag of XXL Tommy Bahama shirts. For a moment it’s enticing – I could let it all hang out and no one would know – but looking in the mirror I suddenly miss my grandmas & that could be a real buzzkill at no-shower-happy-hours.
In the end, I left the mall dejected and the only new thing I had was a swimsuit-sanitary-crotch-strip stuck to the bottom of my left Ked. Walking to my car I couldn’t help but wonder how many vaginas I came into contact with over the past two hours. I bet Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon still applies with that somehow. I was upset.
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But then I had a margarita and 2 glasses of wine before the Sixers game and remembered something. I’ll be down the Jersey shore; my only summer vaca spot for the last 3 decades. Men will be strutting confidently along the shoreline; leather-tan beer bellies greased in SPF8 and Italian horn pendants tangled into their chest hair. Women with tattoos that say things like “LARRY’S” and “Only God Can Jugde Me” will be proudly pounding Bud Heavies by the trashcan clumps near the dunes.
The haters say I won’t find a suit, but I will, and I’ll wear it with the blind, unwarranted confidence of my people and have the best, zero-fucks-given summer ever.
And also, I’ll get sun poisoning on the first day and have to wear a big Barstool t-shirt over it the rest of the week anyway so none of this really matters.