Beach Ball With Legs

We're deep into March. The birds are chripping. The weeds are growing. It already beginning to feel like Spring. Wal-Mart already has their swim suits on display. I decided, this year, it was time to quit stalling and go buy that much needed new bathing suit or swim suit, which ever you prefer.
To be honest with you, I don’t really know what kind of material swim suits are made from, but they shrink from year to year.
Excuse me, but am I the only person who has found this to be the case?
In September I pack the suit away in a drawer, and by next swim season it has shrunk a size...sometimes two. This year was no different.
There’s a few things I’ve noticed about shopping for swim suits.
First of all, they don’t make them for short, dumpy people.
Secondly, why do they make swim suits in the plus-sizes so gawd-awful ugly. These suits generally have some humongous, loud-colored flower or design on them. As a rule, when I slip into a swim suit, I like to be sort of inconspicuous. Big purple flowers make that a little difficult, if you know what I mean?
Thirdly, how can such a little swim suit cost so much?
The other day, I threw on my baggy Capri pants (didn’t we used to call these things pedal-pushers) and my over-sized shirt (the bigger and baggier, the fewer bulges exposed) and headed out to buy a swim suit.
I dug around looking for just the perfect suit for this less than perfect body on the plus-sized rack. This cute little black number with a hint of white on it was calling my name.
Picking it up, I figured it had to work, after all, black is supposed to make you look thinner. I’m all for that.
I flagged down the lady with the dressing room keys. She leads me to the dressing room door and screams at the top of her lungs, “How many swim suits?”
So much for slipping in unnoticed. “Just the one,” I replied.
‘Course now, everyone knows a short, dumpy, old woman was in stall two trying on swim suits.
With my back to the mirror, I went about the task of putting on the swim suit. Tugging at it and poking little love-handles in here and there, I finally got the suit on.
The moment of truth had come. I now, had to turn and face the mirror. Step by step, slowly I turned. I was horrified. Shamu, the Killer Whale was in the mirror.
I can see me now, minding my own business laying on the beach and some kid wanting his mother to take a picture of him with Shamu.
Believe me, this black and white swim suit did nothing for me.
Later, I was looking through some historical pictures, at the newspaper office andI ran across a picture of an advertisement for “Ladies’ Flannelette Bathing Suits, $1.50.” The ad ran June 23, 1906.
The picture showed women coming out of the water in below the knee dresses, long-sleeved, with collars and white trimming. Oh, yeah, they also had on long black stockings. The heftier ladies didn’t standout anymore than did the thinner ones.
Now, that’s my kind of suit. Hey, the price is right, too. OK, maybe that would be a little impractical.
I think I’ll just make do with what I have. In fact, I have a giant beach ball that has a hole in it. I might just add holes for my arms and legs and call it a swim suit. I already sort of look like a beach ball with legs, now I have the colors to match.
Summer’s almost here in my corner of the world, and I’m planning for a wet and wild summer. Well, as wild as a 60 year-old beach ball with legs can get.