The Arctic front that the weathermen and women have been forecasting for the last week finally began moving in yesterday afternoon. I had about $26 left on my JCPenney gift card, so I thought that I'd go to the store and see if they had any sweaters on clearance. They did. Unfortunately, a good 90 percent of them were turtlenecks, and I HATE turtlenecks.Honestly, I don't know if I've always hated turtlenecks, the way I have corduroy (it rubs the mess out my sensitive skin). I just know that I have hated them since high school. I think my aversion to having all that material around my neck began when I had a bad reaction to amoxicillin my senior year. I developed a condition called pseudomembranous colitis that landed me in the hospital for six weeks. I had to have a tracheotomy upon admission so, during four of those six weeks, I had a tube in my throat that breathed for me. I guess after having that thing touch my throat for as long as it did and having no control over whether it would go or stay, I didn't want to have anything bigger than a necklace touch my throat again.
Nevertheless, given the weather, I tried them on and then tried them right back off. I also tried on a few of these chunky-knit, two-button deals that require you to wear some other shirt underneath. I didn't like them either. A lot of them had this weird A-line shape that only works for flat-chested, size 0's. Based on the brand, I'm anywhere from a size 4 to a size 8, hardly what anyone would called a big girl, but I still looked preggers in every last one of them.
I had to settle for one lightweight sweater that was still a little too Twiggy-cut for my tastes (please tell me that trend is going to end soon) but would evoke less "When's the baby due?" comments than the other ones and two long-sleeved shirts, none of which are that warm. Needless to say, I don't plan on leaving the comfort of my gas heater and my electric blanket any time soon. At least those are made for the flat-chested and non-flat-chested alike.
