Lily the Bag Lady
It’s here. Today is the day all my training and hours of brutal torture will come to serve a purpose. Today, I stand as a representative of my country and will face the evils of this world with only my pink armour to protect me. Today, is my prom.
Just saying the word makes me shudder. Prom. Better than promenade, I guess. Anyway, my opening was maybe a bit exaggerated. Okay, okay, a lot exaggerated.
But it was a close call.
I was all ready to get a fake tan and to get my hair done fancy but I chickened out. If deciding to stay in bed for a few hours longer counts as chickening out. I prefer made a logical change of plans. Logical because seeing as I’m wearing a skirt and my dress has relatively long sleeves, no-one is going to see much of my beautifully bronzed limbs. Also logical because whatever I do to my hair, it will never stay in that position. Something to do with the thickness of my hair. Getting it styled at a hairdresser would not only be expensive but also pointless when, by the end of the night, my hair is back to being somewhere between stringy and fly-away. That was an attractive description.
I will almost definitely regret not doing all of this when I’m standing next to my gorgeous, tanned, shiny-haired friends and feeling like a tablecloth drowning in a pile of silk scarves. Yet another attractive description.
So, I’m sure you’re all waiting for me to describe my prom dress in excruciating detail. No? Well tough.
I spent months (a month) looking for a prom dress and eventually settled on the pink version of a dress I already have. I’m clever I am. I already knew the style looked passable on me and getting it in pink would please my friends who wouldn’t let me wear black. This may contradict my earlier comment of pink being my favourite colour but basically, I don’t really wear pink but I’ll buy as many pink nail varnishes as Boots allow. Does that make sense? Probably not, but I can’t think of one point in this blog’s history that I have ever made complete sense. No point starting now.
Next, I ordered these perfect pink heels. Technically, they’re heeled sandals. The emphasis is on the heel. They’re high. Like proper high heels. I don’t wear heels, simply because I look like I need a wee when I walk in them, but I thought I would defy my biological nature and stumble out of my comfort zone. So, back to the shoes. They’re pale pink patent (slightly Barbie-esque) and have white cleated heels. If, like me, you’re not 100% sure what ‘cleated’ means, it’s where the shoes have little squares cut out of the soles. Think like the tops of castles you used to draw.
I put the dress and shoes together and, I am saying this with utter seriousness, I looked like a 1970s prostitute. And not in a good way. After panicking for a few hours (5 minutes) I came up with the ingenious plan to buy a pink skirt to wear on top. This seemed easy until I realised I only had two days. Yep, on Monday I went into town with my friend, who funnily enough embraces the 1970s prostitute look and manages to rock it, and bought a pink pleated midi skirt from the charity shop, Sue Ryder. This was a risk because I didn’t have time to take it back if I didn’t like it but you know me, I’m a real risky gal. That was sarcasm in case you didn’t catch it.
This is where my story finally comes to an end (I can hear you crying) and I tell you whether it all came together. Oooo the tension. As you can probably guess, thanks to my pretty casual and non-stressed tone, the skirt looked good enough and I decided to wear it. I may look like a bag lady but it’s only one day. Probably one of the many days that I will look back on with regret. Another day that I will destroy all evidence of and never think of again, except on my death bed.
After that rather gloomy ending, I am going to say bye.
Wish me luck with my stumbling.
hey! i'm an 21 year old medical student (currently intercalating in anthropology) living it up in east london! i spend my spare time playing dixie chicks on guitar (badly), attempting to do yoga and turning it up at my church.