This Dress Has a Story
I started this story about a dress in 2014. It was actually a story about two dresses. Dresses with varying prints, but with the same accessory. This accessory led to my obtaining dress #2.
As things happen with me in writing, I wrote a draft of this dress story while it was fresh on my mind. Then time moved on and I never finished the story.
This is a frequent occurrence for me. I develop a story in my head that I either start as a draft or jot down the main parts of the story. If I don’t write the story right away, I accumulate the drafts on my computer hard drive.
I have solace in this approach as I know that songwriters and comedians have been known to do the same thing. It is widely known that Prince had an expansive catalog of unpublished songs. Jerry Seinfeld recently published a book of jokes he had accumulated in an accordion file over the years. While I am not trying to compare myself to these creative geniuses, it does help in giving myself grace in not completing everything I start.
The title of my first draft was “This Dress Has a Story”. I saved it on my computer along with a couple of photos that I had taken at the time of the story.
(Now completed dress(es) story from 2014):
2014 was a year when I was all corporate in my career that I complimented with a corporate dress code. I lived in dresses, dress slacks, and sweater sets. The required dry cleaning of this clothing was part of my household routine. I had dry cleaning bags that would fill. Then they would be dropped off and later picked up at my dry cleaners.
One day after I removed the plastic from a clean batch of clothes, I hung my laundered business attire in my closet and noticed something amiss. One of my new dresses, a purchase from the Kenneth Cole spring line, was missing its signature gold metal tie at the neckline. This little gold accessory was the piece that pulled out the fine gold imprint on the navy-blue dress. It would have been called ‘the focal point’ of the dress.
I couldn’t believe it. How could the dry cleaners have lost this? The dress looked barren with empty eyelet holes that had once been filled with a cute gold chain.
Pulling the phone number from the labeled bag now empty on the floor, I immediately called the dry cleaners. Hoping the person answering the phone would take a quick look and find the misplaced chain, I waited on hold.
No chain was spotted in their back room. A manager would have to call me back.
Getting more agitated by the minute, I waited for my call back. Staring at my chainless dress, I visualized how bad it would look with a replaced string or something other than the gold chain.
The dry-cleaning manager promptly called and listened patiently to my whining rant on how that gold chain ‘made’ my dress and how I had only worn this new dress once. We really needed to find that missing chain.
The manager aced every rule in customer service. She fully owned the problem as being on their end. She apologized and she promised to fix it. She asked for all the information from the dress tag. She would later call back requesting more details on the date and place of purchase. Her final promise was to make this right and with a speedy response.
She completely delivered. Within days I was notified that the gold chain would be replaced. In less than a week, I had a call that it was ready for me to pick up. I was incredibly thankful and told them over and over how happy I was with the resolution. Their issue was fixed to my satisfaction.
Briming in delight that my new dress was not a loss from my wardrobe, I went straight home with the replacement chain to make sure it would fit properly into my dress eyelets. Removing the dress from the dry-cleaning hanger, I noticed a tag on the top of the hanger.
“Extra pieces removed when cleaning to protect them. They are attached inside.”
Well, I hadn’t seen that before.
I hadn’t seen it because I hadn’t looked. I was too preoccupied with finding the dry cleaner’s phone number on the bag then to perform a more thorough search of my garment.
Just like the tag had indicated, the original metal chain was in an envelope, separated from the dress. It had been removed from my beloved dress and carefully placed in this envelope to protect the chain from any potential damage. It was clearly indicated on the hanger tag. I didn’t see it because I couldn’t see past the missing chain.
I stared at the original dress chain in disbelief while holding the replacement chain in my other hand. Picking up the dry-cleaning bag for the phone number, I promptly called the manager.
Explaining exactly what I found when I came home and how the dress and chain were handled properly by her staff, I took full blame as the customer. I jumped to a conclusion without making any effort to investigate past my knee-jerk reaction. I was sorry. I was wrong. They were great in how they handled the entire situation. And really, how do they deal with people like me every day?
The manager thanked me for the call and then asked me something I wasn’t expecting.
“Do you want the dress I bought to get the replacement chain?”
Huh? What a kind offer to an unruly customer. Did she seriously buy an entire dress to get the chain?
After confirming that the dress size fit me and that I was interested, she thanked me for the call and said the dress would be added to my next pick-up order. I didn’t deserve a new dress for this whole charade I created, but the manager wouldn’t have it.
“Look, the way I see it, situations like this happen all the time. We are blamed…a lost shirt, a ripped skirt, but later the customer figures out that it really wasn’t us. You are the first person who ever called back to tell me. Thanks for that. You are a good customer. Take the dress!”
So, I took the dress (otherwise known as dress #2) and I loved it. It was something I would pick out for myself. Another Kenneth Cole and although of the same style and with the same chain, dress #2 was made from knit material in an animal print. A completely different look from dress #1.
When complimented on dress #2 over the years, I would always answer with “Well this dress has a story!”
I went on to wear dress #1 with the chain intact to my middle son’s high school graduation a month later.
(story continued below…)
2014 world problem resolved - the chain is back on the dress!
(Story add-on from 2016):
My dress story remained untouched in its original 2014 draft status on my hard drive. Two years had passed, and I was in Boise, Idaho on a girls’ trip. Following a dinner out, the four of us girls decided we weren’t quite ready to go home. Searching her phone, the youngest in our party found a drag show nearby. Without hesitation, we all agreed.
“Let’s do it!”
We were greeted with music and a stage full of beautiful queens styling runway dresses and makeup. The event was a fundraiser for breast cancer. In between the emcee promoting items for auction; music and dancing were abound. The sign above the bar read ‘Dance your ass off’. That is exactly what we did.
A wonderful night of dancing and entertainment, all while raising money for a good cause. I also happily noticed that one of the ladies on stage had on MY DRESS, Dress #2. My gift from the dry-cleaning debacle was front and center, a selection worthy of a drag queen’s night out.
I was thrilled and asked for a picture at the end of the night.
Me: “I have that dress too! Can I take a picture with you?”
Following the gracious acceptance of the photo request, I shared that my dress had a story.
Her response “I get it. There’s a story behind my dress too. Must be the dress.”
Then we went our separate ways
Post-trip organizing of photos, I downloaded the picture of me and the woman in dress #2 to my draft story about the dresses. I added my drag show adventure to my dress story and changed the story name to “Who Wore it Better?”
Once again, the story stayed in draft.
(story continued below…)
(Story add-on from 2019):
I moved to Boise in 2019 with my husband and our dog. I often thought about my girls’ trip there in 2016. I would walk by the location of the drag show, fondly remembering that fun night.
One night in 2019, I sat outside on the steps of our Boise rental home with my friend, Kathy, who was visiting. We were enjoying a glass of wine outside on a beautiful early fall evening.
Our neighborhood was a bustling area of town with a lot of foot traffic. Our neighbors, Dean and Dan, frequently walk by our house on their way home. They humorously coined themselves the hippie gay couple with their long flowing hair and 60-something age. Typically, they were together in their walks. But on that night, Dean was without his partner. As Dean walked by, Kathy struck up a conversation.
Dean casually joined us on the steps slipping a beer out of his paper sack. After talking about how we each ended up in Boise, the story of our girls’ trip came up with the drag show. Sipping his beer, Dean shared that he used to be a drag queen, winning many competitions. We scrolled through photos on my phone, with Dean curious if he knew anyone from our drag show. He did.
Dean glowed as he told us about his drag years and the great experience of being a part of this close-knit group. The camaraderie of the participants positively changed lives by having a venue where they could be themselves while having some fun.
Finishing our wine and beer, Dean deemed it time to go home. With promises of bringing photo albums from his past drag shows, we parted ways.
Kathy and I were looking forward to another night on the steps with Dean, but it never came to be.
Garrett and I moved to Durango, Colorado a few months later. I often wondered if Dan thought it not such a good idea for Dean to share this part of his life with us. I will never know that answer, but it makes me sad that anyone would be fearful for others to know they like to dress up.
(story finished below…)
(Final story add-on from today, 2023):
The drag photos from our Boise night out and our time with Dean on the steps have become top of mind for me. With my recent news feed filling with stories on politicians across the country calling for drag shows to be illegal, I am at a loss. Why? How is this a perceived community issue even worthy of government intervention (while the politicians’ teenagers are watching free porn on their cell phones in the basement….but I digress).
With a Google search, I found what I suspected. Idaho was one of the states prohibiting drag performances. My draft story reached a finale. Time to publish the dress story. It would not be named “Who Wore it Better?” There was no doubt about that answer. The drag queen clearly wore it better than I did. The title of this story was changed back to its 2014 original title of “This Dress Has a Story”.
Drag queens express their stories in full dress on the runway. Dean shared his story on a porch step in Boise. I chose to share mine in the written word. I express myself in writing.
My story is about a woman whose biggest life issue in March of 2014 was with dry cleaners who gave her grace and a dress that frankly wasn’t deserved. Like my missing chain, there are hidden treasures that aren’t in clear sight. We instead look for what is missing, not for what is already there.
The world needs a little more grace and a lot less judgment.
You be you
I found a sign at the airport that I really like. I couldn’t agree more!
