A Modest Rant

Okay, it's happened again.

Perhaps it is the demographics in the town where we live, I'm not sure...but whatever it is, it's simply GOT to stop!

There we were sitting in a nice family restaurant on a Friday night, enjoying a pleasant meal. Yes, for once, even Judah was cooperating. About 2/3 of the way through our meal, I glance up and see my husband looking over my shoulder, aghast. He was facing the entrance into the dining area, but suddenly averted his eyes, lowered his head, and whispered furiously across the table at me, "Oh!...you've got to see this...turn around, 9 o'clock." he said, nodding in a series of short little 'hurry up' kinds of nods. His tone was one of complete disgust.

I casually turned around to glance over my shoulder (well, as casually as a person can when turning completely around to stare, LOL), and my eyes widen. I quickly turn back. I, too, am utterly and completely horrified, and want to reach and cover my older sons eyes. Oh, good grief, lady...have you no decency? Thankfully our son was completely oblivious, far enough out of my husband's line of vision that he couldn't see.

A party of four was just being seated nearby the booth where we sat. Two cowboy looking dudes with big belt buckles, minus the hats, and their dates, which happened to be two very big girls that appeared to be sisters. Possibly even twins. The women had attractive faces, and perfectly styled hair done up as they probably had since their heyday...true Eighties Ladies. One of the gals was dressed rather stylishly for a big girl, in expensive designer clothing cut for the bigger woman, complete with Mary Kay makeup and Cookie Lee jewelry. The other gal matched her almost entirely, except for the piece of clothing that could very loosely be referred to as a blouse.

Now before you get all offended, you should know that I fall in the 'big girl' category myself, but I'm not a big hair kind of gal. Anymore. (I did go through a very brief phase during the 80's where I had the big claw bangs, sprayed to perfection with a half a bottle of L'oreal super-hold hairspray in the Mondrian bottle. But having grown up in the miserable and notorious Western Washington rains, it usually ended up falling flat, and had to be brushed out and quickly restyled in the bathroom before school with my butane curling iron, and second time attempts after the rain never quite achieved the previous height. Thankfully that phase was shortlived, and I've never returned to it.) No offense is intended towards these women, I assure you. I'm just stating the facts here, folks, trying my durndest to give you a good mental image while still keeping my blog "G" rated.

Being a self-professed FrumpMama, I'd be first to admit I'm no authority on fashion. This isn't to say I've given up completely on my appearance, because I haven't. My clothes are wash-and-go, but I never leave the house without clean hair, teeth brushed, makeup on, and if I'm going somewhere special, a couple of spritzes of perfume. Every FrumpMama knows that the second you slip into forgetting good grooming, and go to the grocery store without makeup, you will bump into every person you know! That and the fact that you lose ground, slipping from Frump to Dowdy, skirting dangerously close to becoming one of the throngs of people that don't give a hoot about their appearance and just completely let themselves go.

As I have mentioned before, most days I schlep around in oversized, brightly colored t-shirts, jeans and flip-flops because they are practical. I'm a busy stay-at-home-mom that doesn't have time to worry over things like dry clean only designer fashions. If I can't get toddler stains off of my clothing with Dawn dish detergent (for greasy ones) or Shout out the rest, and if it can't be tossed in the dryer on accident and survive unscathed..it doesn't meet my criteria for purchasing it to begin with.

I buy nearly everything I wear at WalMart or Target, and I purchased my last pair of dress shoes at Big 5 Sporting Goods. Yes, you read that right. Dress shoes. Big 5. They were sensible slip on flats with black leather uppers and good arch support, on sale for $20. What can I say, I have a toddler and often have to dash after him, and so my motto is to always be ready to run (not away, just after my son.) Jimmy Choos, while stylish, would be ridiculously impractical for my lifestyle, and if it's not totally and completely practical, I don't own it.

Even things like sunglasses don't bear designer labels. Why? Because my toddler broke three pairs of my sunglasses over the summer, and I'm glad to say that all I was out was $12. Total. Two pairs were from dollar stores, and one was an overpriced pair I got on sale at Tar-che' while on vacation, only because I didn't know where the nearest dollar store was, and pair #2 had just been stepped on.

That said, I wear oversized t-shirts, mostly for modesty sake, and because I believe that women of my size and stature should just keep their stuff covered up. I'm a big girl, but I'm nowhere near as big as some of the teenagers and women in our area that I see with love handles spilling out of low-rise jeans, or a midriff bearing top that reveals a c-section scar and/or a spare tire just hanging out there uncovered for everyone to see.

Really, everyone should at least take a look in a full length mirror and make sure that nothing is visible that would cause hormonal pubescents to giggle or stare, or cause grannies to gasp. It's called decency. Modesty. And sadly, our nation is lacking it in all levels of society, thanks to Hollywood. And these things are especially noticeable in those that are, um, big. Major fashion faux pas, people!

And as a self-proclaimed fashion police...I'm zero tolerance when it comes to crack. Any kind of crack, anywhere. And I don't care how confident you are or how sculpted you think your body is, ain't nobody wants to see spandex anything outside of a gym, yo! And that goes for men and women alike!

What was so appalling, was that the gal I'm referring to was a big gal. And had very large...bosoms. Buzumbas. And the strained piece of fabric she probably thought was a blouse was nothing short of obscene, leaving nothing at all to the imagination. BMI-Bad mental imagery. TMI-Too much information. Nobody wants to see that much of a stranger, trust me. I was embarrassed for her.

As my husband mentioned when we got out of the restaurant, it wasn't in a "Whoa, she's hot" kind of eye magnetism, but more a drop-your-jaw-in-utter-shock and gape for a moment before uttering "Oh, good heavens, what was she thinking?!" kind of eye magnetism. One of those things you couldn't help taking a double-take at because it was just so hideous.

One family within sight of said party was so offended, they actually got up and shuffled their boys past while covering their eyes, and demanded a new seat. Around the other side of a wall. And with good reason!

This gal was sitting there with a look on her face that told you she thought she was hot-stuff, making eyes at her man, who apparently thought she looked good, too. If her husband (at least that's what I'm assuming he was, given the rings) thinks she's sexy, that's great for them...but could you please confine it to the privacy of your own home, and not go trotting it out in the public arena where there are people eating? Nobody else wants to see your sexy, lady! For gosh sakes, go put it back where it came from! At the very least adjust your 'blouse!' Ask for a bib! Don't just sit there, do something!

To say the neckline was plunging would be an understatement. It looked as though her scoop neckline had gotten hung up on the doorjamb of her car when she attempted to get out, stretched out as far as it could go, then stayed there. Did I mention this woman was...well endowed? I'm being kind here, when I say that her cleavage resembled what you might inadvertently see when the heavy-set plumber was bent over working under your kitchen sink (and recoil in horror), except that somewhere along the line, she'd apparently been in the sun, because the top half of said cleavage was well-tanned, but the bottom portion was fish-belly white, which made it all the more riveting to behold.

Her, um, 'over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder' wasn't quite holding in 'the girls', if you know what I mean, and that's just giving her the benefit of the doubt that she was even wearing one! Nearly every portion of her bosom was hanging out in full view of that great cloud of witnesses, and it appeared that she was either completely oblivious to it, or had intended it to be that way. Judging by the completely disinterested expressions on the faces of the rest of her party, they were apparently used to this manner of dress by that member of their party. The woman herself no doubt thought she was dressing to please her man...but, to put it lightly, she hadn't dressed enough!

Remember the old Aesop's fable about the council of mice that got together and decided that they needed to put a bell around the cat's neck, but they had to find someone brave enough to do it? Well that was the waitstaff at said restaurant. Nobody was quite sure how to handle it, or what to do about it. The manager stood by fretting, sort of wringing her hands. In the end, they decided to just let them be. Come to think of it, I didn't notice a "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service" sticker on the window there, but my guess is that they might just get one after this little incident.

The waitresses were all scurrying around, gaping from their stations across the restaurant, and there was much whispering behind leather tab folders, as they gossipped about the audacity of the woman at table 23.

Did this woman wish for everyone in the place to be discussing her in such a way? Did she even care?

Other customers around the place paused mid-bite to stare.

The cooks, dishwashers and even the busboys were called out to witness the spectacle. Many of which were young men...none of which were impressed. Most of them faked coughs to cover their sudden amused laughter, as they doubled over and turned around, retreating immediately from the scene. Everyone who looked upon her was flabbergasted.

Suddenly, the two women from the afroementioned party got up to go to the restroom together. Because, you know, that's what women do. Except that these women had to do a fair amount of shuffling and side-stepping to get around their table before finally gaining the main aisle. Every head in the place was following their progress, this wardrobe malfunction-in-progress, the restaurant oddly quiet, except for the Shania Twain song, "I feel like a woman" piped in through the speakers. As soon as they entered the hallway leading to the restrooms, the place erupted into a frenzy of whispers and horrified, hand-over-mouth "Oh my word" kind of chuckles and gestures.

I'd have been mortified. The man she was there making eyes with, saw all this going on, and just smiled, as though he thought it was just par for the course, everyone thinking his woman was hot. Which she was not...at least not to everyone else in the place.

They returned a short while later, and once again, the restaurant again fell strangely quiet. People just couldn't help but to gawk.

My husband and I have an inside joke for moments like that where you just can't help but to stare. We got it from the animated movie A Bugs Life, where there is this obscure yet brilliant little scene were a flying bug, I think it was a mosquito, is heading straight for the light of a bug zapper saying in a warbly, singsong voice, "I can't help it...it's so beautiful" and then you hear the telltale, "Ztzzztzzzap!"

And that was pretty much what people throughout that restaurant were doing, gaping aghast. Except that it wasn't beautiful, but appalling.

In the name of all that's pure and holy, lady...cover thyself up!

Oh, and by again? I meant that I saw someone who I think must have been her mother or another sister in the grocery store checkout line a couple weeks ago. Wearing stretch pants so tight that the seam over the stomach made her belly look the same on the front as she did on the back.

I looked over just in time to see some little children that had noticed the same thing gawking at that spectacle and giggling behind their hands.

Please, people, this epidemic has got to stop! Some things are just meant to be covered up!