When my child pulled a pink condom out of my purse in a crowded Minsk bus and said ‘Mummy, help me open this big candy, please’, I should have turned around and hid away at home since it was pretty damn clear that it wasn’t going to be exactly my kind of day. But I like to learn the hard way, don’t I? So I went with the haircut in a beauty saloon way out of my league, where women spend half of my monthly salary just to get hair and makeup done for a small party they are going to, and the haircut, as always, made me feel down instead of up, and the only thing that was going to cheer me up was the usual magic wand – a new dress. That is how I ended up stuck in a dressing room with my almost four year old daughter, her anatomically correct male baby doll (the most useless creature with a dick I have met in my entire life), and three pairs of dresses, one navy blue, stretch denim, three navy style buttons on the chest, one the color of straw with a fake leather belt, one with a busy flower print that looked more like a cheap bathrobe than a dress. But I hope against hope, right? As I am undressing, I am somewhat encouraged to push the day up since I find out that my jeans feel a little tighter today not because I’ve gained a few pounds, yet again, but because there was a pair of black stockings stuck inside them from the precious day. Phew, I say. So as I put on the first dress that is navy blue, tulip skirted, bell-sleeved and tightly wasted, I am feeling hopeful. As it slides painfully down, squashing my breasts inside, I curse at the booth mirrors that show a fatter, more stretchmarked me, the lighting that makes me look like a victim of a viral disease, and my child, who keeps peeping out of the booth and flashing my falling-out fat onto unimpressed, slimmer and smarter customers. I am going to be critical, I say to myself. So as I try to breathe, I tell myself that the dress shows off my chubby arms too much, is too short and the ass area comes off as a large inflated balloon, and, believe me, I don’t need anything inflated there more than it already is. It is an evident no-no and I reluctantly pull the dress up, I do have two more to go, I comfort myself. Of course as it gets to the boob area, it gets stuck. I pull on it really hard, my skin breaks out in red patches and I am covered with miniscule beads of sweat. In pain, I manage to pull it up over my bra and there, on the shoulders, it is stuck FOR GOOD. I mean, it is not moving AT ALL. I try to pull it down and it’s stuck stiff to my wet body. I try to pull it up and it doesn’t move an inch. It is really hard to breathe, I am thinking of calling the assistant, my daughter is not looking at me, smart girl, she knows in situations like this it is better to dissolve into the background. Finding it really hard to think without air, I pull the dress down and stare at it again. The thought of walking out like this with a ‘love it so much won’t take it off’ smile and cutting myself out of it at home, crosses my mind. But then again it costs too much, even though this is a kind of store respectful women aren’t to be seen at, and I won’t wear it ever again, not after the number of brain cells it killed. Reason leaves me completely, so I pull the dress up again, hoping something has changed in the last few minutes, maybe I lost an inch or two around my chest, who knows? So I pull it up over my breasts and they are in agony again, and, sure as hell, the journey stops right there, around the shoulders. I begin to cry, quietly. I say to myself how tired I am of my pathetic life, and my daughter tries to blend with the curtains surrounding her with even more reckless courage. There is nothing else to do. I pull the dress down yet again and rip it down its right side. It’s easy to do. I pull it up, and it gets stuck again. I no longer care by now. So I pull it down and rip it up right in the front. Nothing, again. I open my bra, and fish it out of the dress. Nothing, again. My face is red, my head is bursting, my hands are trembling. As I am beginning to analyse my life for signs of mortal sins I must have committed to deserve this, my baby daughter grabs at the zipper on its left side and opens the dress up, in one smooth slide. I look at myself in the ‘fat’ mirror, a woman with three fucking degrees. I hide the ruined dress in between the two others, which, obviously, I am not going to look at, put my clothes back on, and walk out. I grab a random dress on my way out the store, because I am a nice person and I feel guilty. I pay, I walk through the gate. Dear Universe, being groped by a square-headed security man because the damn thing beeped, and then beeped, and then beeped again, was not exactly what I meant when I wished for a bit of sexual activity later on that day to battle all the stress… Needless to say, the dress that I barely looked at, was a perfect fit, and I am going to wear it on the 8th of March, when everyone under the sun is going to remind me that I am a woman, as if I could ever, and I mean EVER, forget.
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