This week we welcome Marion Jones, one of the delightful leaders at Wellspring, to the blogosphere! For those of us who know Marion, her humorous stories are one of the many things we look forward to when hanging out with her. For those of you who don’t know her, let’s just say that you will by the end of reading this post! She’s real, she’s unpretentious, and she doesn’t take herself too seriously. As you’ll see…

I have dreaded writing a blog ever since I found out I had to. Why? Because I couldn’t think of anything to say… for those of you who know me, I realize this is a shock. I have had some ideas mulling in my brain however, so I decided to humble myself and tell you a funny but true story that happened last summer.

My husband and I have very dear friends from when we lived in Virginia Beach. We have known them for close to 15 years. They started out as our kids’ Sunday school teachers and it morphed into a wonderful friendship. The husband is a Christian film maker. Most of his films have gone to video however, last summer one of his films was released in the mainstream movie theatres. My friend called me and invited my husband and me to the movie’s premiere that would be in Charlotte. All the “stars” of the show would be there as well as the author of the book that inspired the movie. We were very excited with the exception of one thing, the dreaded Dress! Men have it somewhat easy, they put on a suit, shave, maybe get a haircut and they are good to go. Women however, have a whole beast we have to tackle. Nails, makeup, how to wear our hair….. the list goes on and on.

After exchanging several e-mails with my friend, I finally figured out that a black, mid-length dress would be appropriate. The kicker for me is that I am very tall (6 ft.), I am overly endowed and I had gained several dress sizes in the previous year and a half, something I was trying to forget. My first thought was to go on a crash diet but with only a few weeks till the premiere, I realized I did not have time, I was stuck wearing a dress two sizes bigger.

I called one of my good friends to go shopping with me, put on my fairly worn out girdle and we were off. In the first store we looked at, I found a dress but I looked fairly lumpy in the dress in spite of the worn out girdle I had on. I decided to try one of the “miracle girdles”. The ones sworn to take you down a dress size magically. I got one in the correct size and went to the dressing room to try it on. I know why they take you down a size… you sweat away at least one dress size off trying to get the thing on. It took me over 5 minutes to get the thing up and tuck in skin that had “muffined” over the top. I put the dress back on. It looked better but I wasn’t sure so I decided to continue looking. I went back into the dressing room and was faced with the option of taking the girdle back off. I opted to purchase the girdle and keep it on. I took the tags to the cashier and explained that it took me too long to get the thing on, I was still dress shopping, could I please just purchase it? She smiled politely and let me pay without seeing the actual thing I purchase.

My friend and I continued into the mall. I could barely walk. The spandex in the girdle made it feel like I was walking with a very thick rubber band that held my legs together. Every time I took a step I felt like my legs were being snapped back into place. I got a mean leg workout by default. Slowly we walked on to a few other stores, no luck. Then I realized I had to use the bathroom, blasted diet coke!!! We went to the bathroom and tried not to laugh too hard so I didn’t have an accident while I struggled to get the tummy tucker down. It was a close call but I made it, then it took me another 4 ½ minutes to get it back up. Yes, I had shaved off a whole ½ minute by “stretching it” out while walking. After several hours of trying on dresses, we decided that the first one was the best. Then I had to by a bra because the way the dress was, I had to have one that didn’t have normal straps. Now ladies, I will not tell you my actual size but I will say I LONG to be a small DDD. I typically can only mail order my undergarments. At this point, I only had few days left so there was no time to order one. I went to the store where I usually order from to see if by some miracle there were any returns that had moveable straps. There was one in one size smaller. I tried it on. Another ordeal…

I had never owned anything but a normal bra, never one with straps that could be used in 10 different ways. It took me close to 10 minutes to figure out how to get it on with the straps in the right place for the dress. It was a little snug but would work. I went home with it all in tow.

The night of the premier, we had a great plan. My daughter and her friend were going to baby sit the children in the hotel of the after party. We were to arrive around 4:30, drop off the girls and get dressed in their room. Then we were going to go over to the premiere and wait for our friends to arrive with the actor/actresses by limo. I got my make up and hair done by my friend’s daughter. With a pound of make up on (so it would last all night) and an entire bottle of hair spray in my hair, we were ready to go. We arrived at the hotel 2 ½ hours later and went straight to my friend’s hotel room. After saying the hellos, I went to the bathroom to get dressed. I was praying it wouldn’t take me a half hour to get my undergarments on. You may think I’m exaggerating but it was a real fear. Bless the Lord, it only took me 10 minutes to get them on. I had practiced. After all that stress, we had a great time at the movie and party afterwards. It is as close to stardom we’ll ever come. We stayed at the party till midnight but then it was time to drive the 2 ½ hours back home.

By that point, I could barely breathe and I had to use the bathroom desperately so I went into the hotel lobby bathroom and pealed off the girdle. Midnight struck, and I was turning back into the lumpy woman I truly was.