Ack! I’m Stuck!

Dresses from back in the day certainly had their share of elaborate closures.  As I put on the 1940’s styled dress my mom made me some time ago, I thought, “how did women dress themselves?!”  Then I remembered, they didn’t have to, they never lived alone.  Well, I am not so fortunate, and this morning, that really sucked.

The dress, the 1940s styled dress, was my Easter dress some time back. I think maybe in high school, though it might have been college.  When Mom made it, as usual with my retro patterned clothes, it was too small and I needed to wear a waist cincher.  It fits nicely now, although the seams area bit stretched from previous years of forcing myself into it.  It’s so cute!

However, no matter how cute or how well it fits, it is still not easy to put on.  It has a side opening with metal snaps and a hook and eye, as well as a back opening that is half zipper and half small round buttons with thread loop button holes.  And those loop button holes, at the top of my back, are the bane of my existence today.

I was doing fine.  Really proud that I was managing to put this dress on all by myself.  And then I buttoned a button wrong.  So I tried to undo it, but I somehow put the button through the loop again.  And a third time.  I could not unbutton that button.  So, not only could I not fix the buttons so I could button the rest and be fully dressed, I could not get the dress off to put something else on instead.  I was, in fact, stuck half dressed.

My roommate works a quasi 2nd shift schedule, and he’s a heavy sleeper.  I knocked on his door just enough to see if he was up (cuz I didn’t want to wake him if he wasn’t), he wasn’t.   I was very stuck and as much as tried, I could not undo that button.

Finally, I gave up.  I put on my shoes and my makeup, ate my breakfast, packed my lunch and put on my jacket, mostly to hide the back of my dress.  And it was off to work I went, hi ho, with my buttons not in a row.

Luckily, I have some very nice coworkers, and one of them attempted to undo the button.  She couldn’t.  I had gotten it so messed up trying to undo it myself that it was hopeless.  Snip.  She had to cut the button loop.  Then she was able to button the rest of the buttons properly.  And, she had a safety pin to close up the gap with the now missing button loop.  Hooray!

[Pic: me after being properly fixed.]

Now, the fun part will be trying to get this off.