When we last left our heroine, she was laughing at herself and the absurdity of getting stuck in her own swimsuit. Oh, how simple-minded she is! Little did she know that more was to come...
We had spent a few days at the beach enjoying both the gulf and the pool. But somehow after one of our gulf swims, I forgot to rinse out my swimsuit. This meant that when I put it on, I noticed a particular funk emanating from my magic suit. At first I didn't know where the smell was coming from and as I was applying sunscreen to the girls and myself, I kept getting whiffs of an unpleasant smell.
"What is that? What is that smell?" I kept asking. I smelled the towels. I smelled the girls. And then I smelled myself. I apologized to the girls and said that perhaps it would be best if I scurried off ahead of them to the beach so that I could immerse myself and my magic suit in the gulf so that I wouldn't inflict my stink on any innocent bystanders.
After several hours of body surfing, sandcastle building, and fish avoidance, we were tired and hungry and decided to head back to the room to shower and rustle up some sustenance. I told the girls that I would definitely be rinsing out my suit.
Famous last words. Okay, they weren't really last words, I guess, but at one point I certainly thought they would be.
Now, here is where things got dicey. You see, most people take off their suits to rinse them out, and normally, I would have done that too. But for some reason, I thought that it made more sense to wash the suit out while it was on my body. I'm not really sure why I thought this was such a good idea, but I distinctly remember thinking at the time of the "incident" that this was a stroke of brilliance. It seems however, that in the afterglow of having had such a stroke of brilliance, I forgot what happens to my magic suit with the doomsday elastic when it gets wet. Generally when I swim, I give myself a bit of a drying off period so that I'm not dripping wet when I go home/back to the hotel/leave the pool. I just don't like traveling in a drippy swimsuit. So while I was at the beach, I made sure that I gave myself some drying off time before I headed back to the room. This also allows for easier removal of the magic suit. But when I had my stroke of brilliance, for some reason, it didn't occur to me that getting the magic swimsuit wet--absolutely soaking wet--and then trying to remove it would result in a problem.
Super genius, I am.
So there I was, in the shower with my swimsuit on. I had scrubbed it clean and then removed the tankini bottoms. Why I removed them before my top is also a mystery as that is the opposite of what I usually do. (Fascinating, my swimsuit habits, eh?) Apparently I was subconsciously trying to set myself up for maximum humiliation by removing my bottoms and then getting stuck in my top. Because that is exactly what happened next. I was removing the top over my "chestal region" with no problem but then right about at my armpits, I had to stop to get a new grip on the magic suit so that I could stretch the doomsday elastic over my shoulders and head. And this was where the suit went into Super Magic Swimsuit Doomsday Mode by sucking itself to my body so tightly that I could not budge it. This suit was made to support and "reinforce" and it was supporting and reinforcing itself around my armpits.
I struggled and wiggled and wrangled to no avail. I danced about the shower, getting water everywhere, struggling in vain to get my magic suit off. Then I started laughing again. Because really, who gets stuck in their swimsuit TWICE?!?
Me.
Once again, Maggie heard my laughter, came to the door and said, "Mom, did you get stuck in your swimsuit again?"
Apparently I am not as full of surprises as I like to think I am, because she nailed the reason for my hysterical laughter on the first guess.
"Do you need help?" she asked.
"Probably," I responded, giggling. "But not with my suit."
Oh foolish, foolish girl! Words too quickly spoken!
Now, while I was in combat with my suit, I had another stroke of brilliance. "I know!" I thought. "I'll just slip the front of my suit over my head and then just shimmy out of it like I would a coat."
I cannot state this emphatically enough: DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE WEARING A SWIMSUIT MADE OF MAGIC MATERIAL WITH DOOMSDAY ELASTIC STRAPS!!! Because if you do, I can tell you what will happen next. Your swimsuit will have you in a Full Nelson. Yes, I wrestled my swimsuit and it pinned me to the mat to the shower wall.
So now I was in the shower--with the water running--with no swim bottoms on and my tankini top trapping my arms like a backwards straight jacket. I could. Not. Move. Actually, I could move my feet, but short of doing the Hokey-Pokey or the Hustle that wasn't going to do me much good. Now I began to laugh in earnest. But panic had not yet set in. "I got stuck once and got out," I reasoned, "I can do it again." I steeled myself and started again.
Short of thrashing about wildly and nearly tearing down the shower curtain, I got nowhere. Now the panic started creeping in. My logical brain and my panicked brain duked it out while I continued to have hand-to-hand combat with my suit:
"You are really stuck this magic suit of yours," my Panicked Brain whispered. "I don't think you'll ever get out."
"Don't be silly," Logical Brain chided. "People aren't stuck forever in their swimsuits."
Panicked Brain: You'll be the first!
Logical Brain: Calm down and think this through. What did you do last time that helped?
Panicked Brain: Nothing! NOTHING HELPED! NOTHING EVER HELPS! YOU ARE GOING TO DIE IN YOUR SWIMSUIT!!
Logical Brain: Hush! No one ever died from being trapped in their swimsuit.
Panicked Brain: You'll be the first! You'll be the first!
Logical Brain: Call Maggie in. She can probably pull your suit off you.
Panicked Brain: No, it won't work. She's not strong enough! This suit has magical powers! They'll have to call in the fire department and you'll be stuck naked trapped in a Full Nelson by your swimsuit in your "I had five kids" body and your boobs and fat rolls will knock people out of their own force when the firefighters try to free you from your suit! You will become the legend that the veterans tell to the probies! Why couldn't it be one of the girls with their beautiful, young, stretch-mark-fat-roll-free bodies? You will die in your suit but first you will suffer unendurable humiliation!
Logical Brain: Stop it. No one has had to call in the fire department to be removed from a swimsuit. No one has died of humiliation.
Panicked Brain: You'llbethefirst!You'llbethefirst!You'llbethefiiiirrrrsssst!!!!
I called Maggie in and she tugged and pulled. Then she pulled and she tugged.
"Mom," she said laughing. "I'm not sure I can get this off of you."
Panicked Brain: We're all gonna die!!! Weeping! Wailing! Gnashing of teeth! Panic! Destruction! Death! AAAAAAAAHAHHAGAHH!!!!
"Maggie!" I protested. "Stop laughing! You have to get this thing off of me! This is not funny! They'll have to call in the fire department! That would be very, very bad! Fix it!!!!"
After a little more twisting and scrunching and thrashing and wiggling, we were able to get the magic suit off of me and I was able to finish rinsing it out and end my Shower of Terror. The Incident, as it then became known, was a running joke for the rest of the trip and has provided at least two occasions where I have told it--with me acting it out, natch--much to the pleasure of the listeners, so I guess it was worth the momentary panic and humiliation.
But I would like to suggest to Lands' End (urg. Every time I type that, the wrong placement of that apostrophe makes me cringe.) that they include a disclaimer warning people of the possibility of entrapment in their magic suits. Or possibly they just need to tell me.
