Twas Brillig

Yes, dears, it’s day two of Wijvenweek. Today’s delightful topic is shopping.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that fat women don’t particularly like shopping. Oh, sure, we shop for potato chips and Dr. Pepper, but we don’t buy clothing very often. And even when we want to, have you seen the fat girl section of the store? It’s fully of fwoofy hideousness— the exact same styles that fat ladies wore when you were a kid. Polyester tents. It wasn’t pretty then, it sure as heck ain’t pretty now.

And then there’s the problem of trying things on. We’re searching for that outfit that makes us look super skinny. The problem is, we’re not super skinny. And when the clothes we’re trying on don’t manage to skinnify us (yes, it’s a word…) we angrily peel them off and throw them at the poor Fitting Room Clerk, as we stomp off and call our BFF to say that the clothes in this store are crap.

Plus, fat women like me are constantly thinking, “I don’t want to spend a lot of money on clothing, because I’m going to go on a diet and I’m gonna start running 14 miles a day and then I’m going to be skinny—and by next month I’ll lose 50 lbs and then I’ll just have to buy all new clothes.” So we buy cheap stuff. Ugly cheap stuff, convincing ourselves that NEXT month we’ll buy something expensive for our new tiny figures.

Yeah…

So what’s a fat girl to spend her money on?

There’s one answer. One thing that even fat women can’t get enough of. One item that no matter how much weight we lose (or, um, gain…) we can still wear, and therefore justify the purchase. Have you guessed what it is?

Shoes.

Ahhh, glorious shoes. Why do we need so many pairs of shoes? Because. That’s the best I can do. Because. I just looked in my closet and counted 11 pairs of black high-heeled shoes. Why does any one person need 11 pairs of black high-heeled shoes? Because. Because they make me feel pretty and stylish and with-it. Plus they’re all different. Really, they are. Brian doesn’t believe me, but I promise they’re very different. Some have square toes, some have pointy toes, some have peep toes, some have rounded toes. Some are shiny. Some hurt my feet so bad that I can only get through one hour of church before I start hobbling and leaning on strangers to hold myself up, all the while I scream and curse out my shoes (and then, once I get home, I put them away in a nice safe place so I can wear them next week).

And that, my dearest Gentle Readers, is all of my expertise on Shopping.