I consider myself a person who knows the normal things a person knows. I can make macaroni and cheese. I can fix a running toilet. I’m aware that the Fed-Ex logo contains an arrow. I have a skin-care routine, I use tampons without incident, and I understand that some restaurants are closed on Mondays.
But it wasn’t until Tuesday, December 18, 2018, in my thir[cough] year of living, that I learned for the first time an essential aspect of a common item of clothing. It was not until Tuesday that I found out every dress-wearer around me held a secret inside guarding it (from me). It was not until Tuesday that I learned wrap dresses have a little hole in them, under the right arm, and the hole is fundamental in being able to put on the wrap dress.
Incredible.
I purchased a wrap dress two years ago from an online shop, black velvet with a V neckline and long sleeves, thinking I would wear it during the holiday season. Instead I wore it never. Every time I attempted to put the dress on I could not figure out how to make it function as a dress. Instead it was sort of a sloppy, open robe; a misaligned disaster.
If you haven’t seen a wrap dress, they look like this:
If you don’t know about the little hole because it was kept a secret from you even though you try to be nice to people whenever you can, it’s not particularly possible to close the dress. Maybe you can imagine it in your mind, or mime tying a dress with your hands to get a sense of it. The sides get all weird, and the front stays all open. Untenable.
On Tuesday I decided I’d had enough and typed “how to put on a wrap dress” into YouTube. Amazingly, there seemed to be an answer.
“The wrap dress is one of the most universally flattering, most amazing dresses any gal can have,” says this nice lady. “But one of the biggest questions we get is: how the eff do you put it on?” Yes!!!!!! TELL ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“When you open the dress like so, you’ll see that there’s a little hole there,” says the woman, showing us the little hole in her dress, NOT keeping secrets. “That is not a fault in the garment, it is a part of the dress.” She demonstrates that you need to put one of the strings in the hole, and then wrap it around.
I found the hole, I put the string in, and it worked.
I’m not sure how one is supposed to know about the hole. I guess the answer is probably that the dress came with the string already in the hole, so the buyer could infer that the string needs to go back into the hole in order to wear the dress. But I don’t think it’s far outside of the realm of possibility that a buyer would just take the string out of the hole and then forget about the hole altogether. Why would you ever assume you need to find a small hole and put a string in it in order to wear a dress? Why didn’t anyone ever mention that this is what you had to do? Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
Anyway, that’s how you do it. Thanks for nothing.