The Sixteen Steps to Owning an Eight-and-a-Half-Inch Skirt

Step 1: The Problem
I’ve been reborn. My estrogen patch restored my sleep, energy, and hair back to age twenty-two. Time to reverse-age my wardrobe.

Step 2: The Store
Purdy Girl, a shop that mangles vowels and swaps consonants like a bra worn on the outside. The sales associate greets me, “Hey, girl. Don’t miss the sales rack.”

Step 3: The Find
An eight-and-a-half-inch micro mini skirt that’s quadruple marked down to $29.99.

Step 4: The Research
Unlike a pair of 7.4-volt heated slippers with rechargeable batteries, a skirt isn’t complicated, so I skip the Amazon reviews.

Step 5: The Test
“You wanna try that on, girl?” The associate herds me to a mirror-less dressing room. I improvise by propping my phone on the floor in selfie mode. From this low angle, I look like a glamazon on stilts in a heinie hugger. I may have entered the dressing room as a woman, but I’m leaving it as a girl.

Step 6: Impulse Purchase
The checkout area is like Paris Baguette. I’m offered a free pâtisserie. Seems counterintuitive to fitting into crop tops. I’m asked if I want to donate my jeans to save an extra 10 percent. I’m a goodwill girl. I give away my pants and leave in the micro.

Step 7: Buyer’s Rejoice
My thighs have conquered a lot: a master’s degree, birth, high-waisted jeans, low-waisted jeans, mechanical bulls, the boot-scootin boogie, the Macarena, and wheelie chair races. Wearing a dollhouse curtain is the perfect way to celebrate them.

Step 8: The Fail
Walking home in my caboose coverlet, I’m startled by my reflection: a menopausal ogre with SUPA DUPA FUPA. I drop my mochi donut. A micro mini isn’t something I can bend over in without blasting passersby with my honey buns, so I stop, drop, and roll to the downed pastry.

Step 9: Buyer’s Remorse
What was I thinking, entering a store aimed at seventeen-year-olds with upcycled bralettes? Eight and a half inches is barely enough fabric to make a kimono for a Hallmark Precious Moments figurine.

Step 10: Purchase Reinforcement
I remind myself that my body is a collab between a divine being and a genomic sequence longer than a CVS receipt. It’s my right to wear a derriere doily.

Step 11: Purchase Disempowerment
I tell myself to shut the eff up. Why did I buy clothing the size of a disposable wipe?

Step 12: The Return
I’m frozen on the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and Seventy-Eighth Street. Any movement could whip up a gale-force wind that may cause my baby bib to flutter and expose my badonkadonk.

Step 13: Purchase Support
Inch by inch, I move until I reach the scene of the derriere debacle. I tell the sales associate, “I want to return the skirt.”

“Sorry, girl, all sales are final.”

I ask if I can just get my jeans back. She says my jeans have been allocated to Gloria, a woman in need. It’s only been fourteen minutes since I donated them.

Step 14: Purchase Augmentation
To max-up my micro skirt, pettipants are suggested. Short ruffled bloomers inspired by undergarments from the 1800s. A time when propriety ruled fashion. Now, it’s ruled by insanity.

Step 15: Purchase Interference
Before purchasing, the sales associate asks to see my ID. I show it. She says, “Sorry, girl. I can’t sell you the pettipants.” I ask her why not. She says for safety reasons, the store doesn’t sell pettipants to anyone over fifty. I tell her that’s ageist. She explains that when combined with hot flashes and dry vaginal walls, the pettipants may spark spontaneous combustion. I ask how I’m supposed to get home in a tooshie tunic. She says she’ll sell them to me, but she won’t take responsibility. She has me sign a waiver absolving her of any pettipants accidents.

Step 16: The Rear End
I leave Purdy Girl as a liability. I pause on the sidewalk to eat a mochi donut. Suddenly, I’m sideswiped. I hit cement. Another body follows. Buttocks up, I instantly recognize the jeans. “Gloria?”