Online shopping.

Is there anything more joyous and wonderful than the words “Order confirmed”…or “Your order is on its way”… or “Order delivery notice” popping up on your little screen?

No.

Tis heavenly.

And then there is the arrival of the anticipated order, all squishy-bagged and bar-coded and heavy with joy. The heavier the better, for weight often denotes quality does it not?  And the careful but excited ripping open of the package;  excited that the garment within will be life changing and beautiful, and yet careful, “just in case” it has to go back; for there is nothing more irritating than trying to reassemble a plastic envelope which has been ripped off too energetically, in the throes of passion.

You take the little see-through bag from inside the plastic envelope of joy, knowing in the back of your mind that you should feel guilty about the superfluous packaging and making a note to yourself to email a protest or plant a tree or something.  The guilt is short-lived however, when you get the lovely, shiny, new and wonderful garment in your hand.

You strip off, anticipating the transformation that is about to happen.  Surely this piece of clothing is about to change your life.  Surely, in approximately 30 seconds, you too shall look like the model did on the website.  Surely, it will be fablis.

And sometimes it is…

Sometimes, it zips up and hugs you in all the huggy places, and makes you look sublime, even without a glossy blowdry and layers of muckup. And on those occasions, you feel euphoric, if only for  few moments, while you gather up the plastic envelopes of joy and the stickered return slips and you squash them into the bin, smug and happy…before peeling off the beautiful thing and returning to real life…

But sometimes, what has been placed into the plastic envelope of joy, is a prank.  It has been packaged up by some Hell-Fiend-Wench, who smiles to her fanged self as she uses her magic glue gun to invisibly stick the packages.  She smiles as she knows that there is no physical human shape or form that this garment could possibly fit. She smiles as she knows that the item may well have been sewn together by goblins in a cave in the back arse of Narnia, such is the disastrous quality of it.  She smiles as she sticks your address label on, knowing well that it shall be returned at haste, complete with your dignity and self-confidence, in even MORE plastic envelopes.  And she laughs, this little Hellfiend Wench.   For she is the killer of the the joy of the online purchasing.

And yet sometimes, it is not the fault of the Hell-fiend wench.  Sometimes it is simply a case that the garment does not fit.  You try to get into it.

It either

a) slides on without you having to even look for the zip, reminding you once again of the extent of fried-eggedness on your chest and eventually looking like a glorified potato sack into which you could fit two of you…

or more than likely,

b) you get stuck.

You get your hands and shoulders into it.  You search ferociously for the teeny tiny zip, made only for the fingers of a 4 year old, which you are certain MUST not be fully down.  It is indeed fully down… and now stressing under the strain of your flailing arms.

You hold your breath because somehow, holding your breath makes the clothing stretch, doesn’t it?  Then you remember that no actually, you silly mare, holding your breath does not make the material stretch.  Then, when you try to breathe, you find yourself unable to.  You hop around the room on one leg, even though it is your arms that are stuck, not your legs, you Twat.  And then you fall onto the bed, feeling certain that this is how it must feel to die with a python wrapped around your neck.

The obvious thing to do is to take it off again…and yet, the garment is now stuck. Stuck under one armpit and over one shoulder and your body below is white and compressed and dimpled, while from the tits up, you are puce and puffing.  Your circulation is ceasing and you look like a thumb which has a tight hair bauble tied around it.

You say a magic spell consisting of expletives you didn’t even know that you knew and you pray simultaneously that the godforsaken python dress does not rip as you wrestle your way out of it.  It is finally off and you both lay on the bedroom floor, crumpled and defeated…

Then you reach for the python-garment and fling it into the plastic envelope of not-joy, still inside-out obviously, because if it is going to leave you in a state, you are certainly not affording it the dignity of being folded neatly.  Let the Hellfiend Wench in packaging in the warehouse deal with it.  You’re done.

And then you lift the piece of stickerdy paper which asks you your reason for return.  Unfortunately there is no “The dress tried to fucking kill me” or “The dress turned my size 12 arse into a walrus” or “This is obviously for AGE 12 rather than size 12 you muppets” options, and so you do what any self respecting Lady would do…

You lift that pen and you read the list…and then you tick that box that says “Garment too big” and sellotape up the plastic-bag of joy, before the lies come slithering out of it.

Feels good though, doesn’t it?

#mammywin

#feckyouhellfiendwench