The Bridal Show

Through the years, I have worked at several jobs. I've been a data entry clerk, a secretary at a car auction, washed library books, a hairdresser, an instructional assistant, a high school secretary, a Program Assistant, an Accounts Payable Clerk, then back to the Program Assistant.  I loved working at the high school.  I retired in 2005 and I still miss the kids and the staff.  

I left the Central Office in 2003 after six years and went back to where it all began, the high school. I worked with a good friend in the Youth Service's Department.  We shared our office space with the attendance clerk, also a good friend.  I'm sure it didn't take long for the principal to realize maybe he had made a huge mistake by putting the three of us together.  We loved to have fun and before long, students and staff found out that our office could be a "happy "place.  It was a busy place too, sometimes too busy. Somedays we didn't have time to eat or take a bathroom break.  The three of us were good friends at school and also out of school.  When the attendance clerk announced she was getting married to the most eligible bachelor in the county, we were excited for her.  She had always wanted a church wedding and thankfully so did her groom. 
They set the wedding date for June and we started planning in January.  She asked her teenage daughter to be the Maid of Honor, and the Youth Service Director and Myself to be her bridesmaids.  This was going to be so much fun.  I was a bridesmaid in several of my friend's weddings back in the day, but us three ole gals were getting on up in years. I was the overweight bridesmaid.  The other three all together didn't weigh as much as me.  The thought of standing up in front of a church full of people while standing beside those skinny things, kind of made me sick.  

The bride picked her dress out first.  I went with her for support and to offer my opinion.  She had no trouble finding her dress, we all liked it as soon as she put it on.  According to T.V. and newspaper adds, there was going to be a bridal exhibit in Lexington one weekend so we made plans to go.  We thought we might get some good ideas since we didn't have any ourselves.  We left home early so we could spend the day. We were also hoping we would find some bridesmaid dresses we liked.  The show was going to be held at Rupp Arena and when we pulled into the parking lot there were several cars there.  We put on our lipstick, combed our hair, tossed back a breath mint and headed inside like the girls from the show, "Sex and the City."  We opened those big doors to Heritage Hall and went inside.  Several people were shopping and milling about.  We didn't want to ask directions to the show, we all felt sure we knew our way around.  So we headed down the hallway that we assumed would lead us into the bridal show.  Giggling and twisting all the way, I started to notice that there were a lot of men in the crowd.  Men who looked like real men, farmers and construction worker types.  I expected to see a lot of just-out-of-college and engaged looking ladies as well as ritzy looking matrons with teased, blonde hair and a lot of diamonds, but I didn't see anyone at like that all.  I remember saying, "What's with all these men?"  I even saw one guy pulling a air compressor.  My partners in crime were beginning to wonder also.  We noticed the exhibit hall up ahead on the left, but when we got there the sign out front said, "Discount Tool Sale."  This kind of excited us because all three of us are the "fix it yourself" type.  We decided to look around awhile and ask the check-out lady where the bridal show was.  

We got a little carried away in the "Discount Tool Sale" to say the least.  We just couldn't pass up a bargain.  My bridesmaid buddy bought a lawn wagon.  It was big and heavy.  Very awkward to carry around.  She asked a young guy working there to help her get it out to her vehicle.  We also asked the lady who checked us out about the bridal show.  She wasted no time in telling us, "Oh, that's next weekend."  Duh!!  We found this to be typical of the three of us and quiet funny.  We had came to see a bridal show and ended up at a tool sale.  We were going to make the most of our day by going to the mall and trying on dresses, but first we had to get that big purchase out to the vehicle.  Coming out wasn't as easy as going in for some reason.  We thought we had just walked straight through the doors and down the hall when actually we had ridden an escalator.  We must have been talking because none of us remember riding an escalator upstairs.  Anyhow, now we had our little helper pulling what we had bought on a yellow dolly.  He was quiet taken with us three silly ole ladies who thought everything was funny.  He didn't realize how hard it was going to be to get all that stuff and the dolly down the escalator, but he soon found out.  Apparently, he had never worked at this job before because he had no idea what he was doing.  We tried to help him as much as we could, but we had a serious case of the giggles and didn't give it all we had.  We pulled the dolly onto the top step, jumped on the escalator, held on to the purchases and still messed up.  As soon as we started going down, the boxes on the dolly came loose and rolled all the way down the escalator, knocking feet and legs of other shoppers all the way down.  We tried to catch as many as we could, but most were too heavy and were moving pretty fast.  We were yelling, "look out and heads up" but most people didn't heed the warning.  During all this, I remember looking at the nice young man still holding on to a now empty dolly.  He looked scared to death.  He was even a little pale.  We made it down before he did and started trying to pick up the boxes.  Some were still under a man's feet.  He had to hop over the boxes to get off the escalator.  Needless to say, these shoppers didn't seem to pleased with our actions.  But, we still thought it was funny and getting funnier by the minute.  Finally, our helper and his empty dolly made the exit off the escalator, much to his embarrassment.  We loaded all our stuff up and since we felt bad for the young man, we all three helped him push the dolly.  

We made it to the van and got our stuff loaded, thanked our dolly driver and climbed in.  Then things exploded.  We all three laughed so loud and so hard that the van was shaking.  We cried our mascara off it was that funny.  Each blamed the other for getting the dates mixed up.  Looking back on it now, I'm sure I was the one who got the wrong date.  I'm good at that. 

We hurried over to the mall thinking we'd be coming back several more weekends before we found what we liked, could afford and would fit two sticks and a fat lady.  But, that's where we were wrong.  We found the perfect dress as soon as we walked in the door of Dillard's Department store.  We even found shoes too.  A nice lady helped us try on our dresses and offered her advice.  The dresses were strapless, so she thought we could use these foam things to wear instead of strapless bras.  We tried those on and were quiet pleased with the outcome, so we each bought a pair.  

The day of the wedding finally came.  It was sunny, warm and perfect.  We had appointments to get our hair and make-up done which was a luxury for us.  We had a grand old time laughing and telling how we went to a tool sale instead of a bridal show.  We arrived at church still having fun.  We gathered in one of the Sunday school rooms to get dressed.  Everything was going great.  I put my foam things in my bodice and was quiet proud of how I looked.  My fellow bridesmaid however, wasn't sure of hers.  She was a little bigger than me in that department and thought maybe the extra padding made hers look too big.  The rest of us in the room, and there were a lot of people in there, convinced her that she needed to wear them, so she did.  

The time had come to start the show.  We had to walk outside to get to the vestibule where we were to line up and wait to make our entrance.  Just so happened that there was a mirror hanging in the vestibule.  We checked ourselves one last time before we went down the aisle.  I looked as good as I was going to get, but the other bridesmaid still wasn't liking those foam add-on's, so she took them out right there in church.  I looked at her and whispered, "where are you going to put them now?"  I don't think she had thought that through because she began looking around for a place to put her foams.  There was a pretty, high backed chair in one corner, so she lifted the cushion and placed her foams under it and was then ready to march down the aisle.  

The service was beautiful.  It had a few moments that made us laugh, but hey, it was great.  The minister was a wonderful man and a good preacher.  He was overweight, but didn't seem to mind.  He actually made jokes about his weight at his own expense.  After the ceremony, we were all milling around before going to the reception, I reminded my bridesmaid buddy not to forget her foam things.  She said, "thanks for reminding me, I'm going to go get them right now."  We both turned and headed toward the pretty chair where her extra parts were hidden and both stopped dead in our tracks.  The preacher was now sitting in that pretty chair and he was squashing her foams flat.  Why stop now, we had laughed about this wedding for months anyhow, so we roared one more time for prosperity.  We hurried to the reception to tell the bride that the preacher was sitting on the foam things.  We had to wait forever until he got up to go retrieve those things.  They were now shapeless.  Oh well, she didn't like them anyhow. 

That couple have been happily married for several years.  The three of us no longer work at the high school, but we are still good friends.  I think about that wedding a lot.  I remember how uncomfortable those shoes were, what a good time we had and of course I remember those flat foam things.  I wonder what ever happened to them.