iron dress shopping

On Saturday, I found myself inside that mall I never go inside of.   I went shopping for a funtime dress.

I mentioned that Magnum and I were going to a wedding on Sunday.  I don't have many occasions for wearing girly clothes.  I often wear skirts for tutoring, but those aren't girly funtime skirts, they're hit-the-books skirts.  I have one skirt that can moonlight as funtime skirt, but I was sick of wearing it to everything.

So I went to the mall, found the perfect thing on sale.  Score!  Magnum and I even ended up being halfway color coordinated.  Is that what happens when you're married for, like, ever?

Anyways, the reason I mention it is because I was standing in line waiting to purchase my cheap fun dress.  The store was actually pretty busy, it being Saturday and with this big summer dress sale going on.  So I was standing there kind of daydreaming, there were a couple of girls in front of me, also waiting.

At one point, one of the girls reached over to the sunglass rack that was near me, to try on a pair.  I hadn't noticed her much before, but when she did that, I couldn't help but note how big her arms and shoulders were.

She was wearing a tank top and compression shorts and had her hair up in a high ponytail.  She looked to be in her early 20's.  Her companion was similarly dressed and looked to be about the same age.

She put the sunglasses back and turned back around, her wide, strong back now facing me again.  Her friend was also amply muscled.

They were just extremely strong looking, yet at the same time, not distractingly so, even in tank tops.  I began surmising.  We do have the Olympic Training Center here, so I was thinking they were probably members of  U.S.A [something].  Could be powerlifting?  Swimming?  Gymnastics?  But they looked too old for gymnastics and a bit short for swimming.  Powerlifting, I decided.

Later, I mentioned this to Magnum.  Something like, "Geez, these girls at the dress place had some big arms and backs/shoulders/thighs!"

His response was, "So, did they hit on you?", half joking.

Well, NO.  He was picturing something like

Fran, from "Dodgeball"

Way back when I was in high school, a powerlifting gym opened up in town.  One of my friends asked me to go down and lift weights with her.  Her boyfriend was into powerlifting and encouraged her, so she was going to start but didn't want to be the lone girl.

"Yeah, okay!"  I answered.  Could be fun.

And it actually was, as I remember.  We didn't take it very seriously, but I did learn a few things about strength training and we had some good times.  There were a few guys, along with her boyfriend, who did powerlifting competitions once in a while and served as our trainers.

The guys weren't pigs.  My friend and I did not turn into "Frans".  Looking back, we had some good times at that testosteral building.  Eventually, I stopped because of my other extracurricular activities at school.  By then, there were some other women and girls coming to the gym.

So Magnum's compartmental joke reminded me of the stigma that women weightlifters probably are often subjected to.  It reminded me of a video I saw back during the last Olympics.  The mall girls, it turned out, were also getting funtime dresses - for a wedding "back home".  Just being girls (who could easily flatten me).




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