Is HAVING to go buy a SWIMSUIT -- Pray for the Salesperson

Shopping for swimsuits is not what I consider fun shopping. I count it at the top of my personal torture list. I cannot tell you when the last time I went and bought a swimsuit. I avoid it at all costs. People think because of my build or shape that swimsuit shopping would be no big deal, but they would be oh soooooo very wrong.


Those of us who are “pigment challenged,” “critically Caucasian,” or “translucent” avoid the sun at all cost. When I am out at a pool, I’ve been known to blind airplane pilots that fly overhead. Birds have had head-on collisions. My friends ask me to lay a certain way so as to reflect a more intense sunbeam in their direction. And now that I have crested the hill and am in my 40s, things that were once solidified have become…how shall I say it, gelatin.

The perfect swimsuit for me would solidify me and suck up the stuff around the middle, support the girls, and be of such a color that it would make me look like I have some melanin in my skin. I don’t want a high cut, low cut swimsuit, and I sure don’t want a bikini! I would traumatize my children even more than I already have.

The reason I’m shopping for a swimsuit is because my daughter and I are going on a mission trip and will have an opportunity to swim. Personally, I think seeing me in a swimsuit would frighten enough young girls into salvation. Praying, “Please Lord, don’t let me look like that in a swimsuit!”

When I was little, I spent a lot of time outside, and I got freckles…a lot of freckles. My hopes as a child and teenager is that I would have enough freckles that they would one day connect and give me one wickedly, savage tan, but alas, that did not happen. BUT, my freckles did provide entertainment for my sister in church by giving her plenty of dots to connect with her pen.

So, if you are in Dillard’s anytime in the next week or so and you hear sighs of exasperation, gales of hysterical laughter, or an ongoing conversation with only one voice participating say a prayer and walk far, far, far away. If you know my husband’s cell number, you may want to let him know.