I'M TALKING TO YOU J. CREW

Two months ago I got a text message from my friend Becca with a picture and a tagline that said, “I just got engaged!” The picture could not have been more disgustingly adorable, what with the Magic Kingdom castle in the background and rosebushes at every conceivable angle. Both of them were smiling like they’d just eaten opiate-laced sno-cones and her hand was placed strategically on his chest, which is girl code for LOOK AT MY FUCKING RING, BITCHES. Her future husband could not have picked a better place to propose to her because if anything personifies Becca, it’s Disney World in its truest form. Not the scary teenagers in Pluto costumes or the eunuch-esque voice of Mickey Mouse, but that magical tingly sensation you’re supposed to get when you’re a kid and you see the sparkling castle in the distance where Tinkerbell might live. Becca is Tinkerbell, if Tinkerbell were a recovering hippie with a tendency to wear jingly ankle bracelets and frolic through fields of flowers.

Right after the engagement announcement I got word that I’d be playing the part of bridesmaid. I was kind of excited, because if Becca is getting married it’s the real deal. I met this guy over Thanksgiving and to say I approve would be an understatement. Not that she needs my approval- but it sure is less gut-clenching when your friend isn’t marrying a total douche. It also means that there will be less surreptitious sipping from the whiskey flask, which would lead to fewer grain-fueled speeches about how their love is like a bb gun: not too painful and rarely fatal, unless you shoot them right in the eye.

The only issue I have is my selected bridesmaid dress:
Pretty, no? It is. Except when I put it on and it zips up to my bra strap, wherein my upper chesticular region starts to laugh and says REALLY? TRY AGAIN. This is a problem, because J. Crew doesn’t make clothing above size ITSY and I got the largest size they make, knowing as I did that what fits in the waist does not fit in the top, and the top must definitely be covered. Can’t upstage the bride in the middle of her wedding vows with a boobtacular revolt.

So I set out to correct the problem. I ordered a second dress from ebay with the hopes of using the extra material as… something. A wrap? A jacket? A poncho? Because that’s what it’s going to take to move this dress away from the gaping maw of Slutville. A fucking poncho.

When I realized that the task at hand involved things like seam rippers and sewing machines, I thought maybe I could just rectify the situation with some undergarments. Have you ever seen those really ugly garments that look like modernized corsets? I bought one, but not for my waist. I thought that maybe, possibly, if I hooked and lycra-ed them into submission, it might give me a few more inches of zip-able dress. It does. But it makes me look like I’m smuggling really large and strangely poofy dinner plates. Not my most flattering look. So I bought a cardigan, hoping to cover up the inches of material that steadfastly refused to meet in the middle. Also not my best look. I look like I’m about to serve tea in 1956 and, oh, I’m sorry, let me get you a plate for that, I’VE GOT ONE RIGHT HERE IN MY BODICE.

I have from now until April 26th to come up with a viable solution. I’ve even enlisted the help of my mother, who will be lugging a sewing machine up three flights of stairs because the one I’ve got is broken, possibly due to the last time I tried to sew something and I ignored the telltale angry machine noises and let the needle lodge permanently in the plastic siding.