I’m just as evolved as the average woman. I’m smart, I’m funny, and I can sing “See You in September” backward. I paint, I write, I can still recite the entire introduction to the old TV show “Superman.” I’d say I have a pretty good self-image, except for two areas of life: finding myself at a dinner party with my gastroenterologist and being in a communal dressing room.
I thought the chance of either happening was slim, especially since a couple years ago, Loehmanns installed private dressing rooms. But yesterday I went to Loehmanns for their big 20% off sale. Because of the big sale (only until May 22),there was a long line to get into the private rooms. I didn’t feel like waiting. I headed for the communal area.
Here are my concerns about communal dressing rooms:
5. I will rip a garment while trying it on.
4. I will be seen doing #5 by a lot of people.
3. I will get stuck putting something on and not be able to extricate myself.
2. There will be a fire drill during #3
1. I will be in close proximity to someone who is10 inches taller, weighs10 lbs less, is 30 years younger, and who is trying on the exact same clothes as me.
Picture this: She is tall (We are talking really tall). Her legs take up the length of my body now inhabited by my legs and torso. Butt, breasts: perfection. Skin color: Something other than pasty anemic white. She’s standing in her perfect tiny matching undies, trying on one perfectly fitting garment after another. To make myself feel better, I tell myself she is a famous supermodel who has been personally airbrushed before making the trip to Loehmanns for the big sale, but then I hear her say something to the woman next to her about her job and it is perfectly ordinary.
I now realize I’m now trying to change garments without actually taking anything off until the next garment is in place. At the exact moment I have discovered that I have approximately seven garments on me, I hear her say to the woman next to her, “I don’t know what it is about those five lbs. They come and go. It’s so frustrating. I just can’t figure it out. Maybe it’s the ice cream. I should cut down on that.”
I have to leave. I pull one of the seven garments over my head too quickly and it gets stuck. It won’t come off. I feel like Houdini’s mother, about to cover the Houdini Straight Jacket Escape for Harry who is home with a cold. A button pops off of the garment on my head. The garment stays firmly in place. I stand very still and listen. I am grateful I don’t hear anything rip.
That’s when I think I hear the fire alarm.
Life in the Boomer Lane 
Lunar Euphoria
May 20, 2011
My worst communal dressing room nightmare was realized in grad school when my dance troupe made a makeshift dressing room out of a corridor between the men’s and women’s restrooms. I was midway through undies removal when in walks a distinguished male professor on my dissertation committee.
It was a serious mortification moment.
lifeintheboomerlane
May 20, 2011
The memory of which will last a lifetime.
pegoleg
May 20, 2011
I was 20 years younger and 40 pounds lighter the last time I experienced the Loehmanns communal dressing room and I still have the ego scars. Never again, I vowed.
Elly Lou
May 20, 2011
And that’s why God made the internet. That and so we could find great visuals of what Saturday is going to look like during the great heavenly hoovering.
writerwoman61
May 20, 2011
Thanking my lucky stars that we don’t have communal dressing rooms in stores in Canada…yikes! I think that’s why I never go to public swimming pools…
Funny post, Renée…
Wendy
Amy
May 20, 2011
I have never had to endure this particular brand of torture. As if trying on anything in the horrible lighting and 360 degree mirrors of a private dressing room wasn’t bad enough!
lifeintheboomerlane
May 20, 2011
Even privacy isn’t enough to make swimsuit trying on anything other than torture.
Mikey
May 20, 2011
I didn’t even know there were communal dressing rooms! I don’t think they exist all the much in the male-realm. Probably because three-quarters of us don’t even try on clothes, and we certainly don’t do so in front of other guys.
It is a lot like a public restroom; in public restrooms guys aren’t supposed to talk, make eye contact, or look anywhere that could be misconstrued as a glance at the crotch. If there were too many communal changing rooms for men, it would probably break out into chaos quite quickly.
It is bad for me as a chubber of a dude to try clothes on anyway. Especially when I have to hand them back to the girl who attends the dressing room. I know she will pick them up to re-fold and see that I couldn’t squeeze my girlish hips and big butt into a pair of size 42 shorts and will think, “Dang! That’s a big boy”…usually i just end up refolding and shelving my un-bought clothes to avoid it.
lifeintheboomerlane
May 20, 2011
You are so funny and so right.
lafemmeroar
May 20, 2011
There’s a Loehmann’s in my area and I’ll wait an hour for a private dressing room before I try on clothes before other women because trying on clothes is a private moment for me. #5 would be my biggest concern … I’d be thinking do I have to pay for it now?
lifeintheboomerlane
May 20, 2011
Thanks for visiting Life in the Boomer Lane, La Femme. Yeah, next time, I wait.
SisterMerryHellish
May 20, 2011
If I wasn’t already stuck in my clothes I probably would have jammed a spork in her perfect, delicate, swan-like neck at the “I need to lose 5 pounds” comment.
lifeintheboomerlane
May 20, 2011
Shit. I didn’t think of that. I could have walked behind her perfectly formed butt, fake-tripped, and stabbed the back her her neck with a hanger. But my face was swathed in fabric and I would have ended up stabbing myself.
Mikey
May 20, 2011
I have faith in your fabric swathing movements. What would have been awesome about that part is with the clothes around your head you’d be unrecognizable like a freaking dressing-room ninja!
One quick swoop of the hanger and BAM! Her now imperfect body is on the ground writhing in hanger-pain! Can you say department-store shiv? (Also, hangers make food garrote-wire, just place around neck of victim and twist at both ends…this only works for wire hangers though; for plastic ones with clips at stores…well their other use is found more in S&N clubs than dressing-room combat.)
Lisa Wields Words
May 20, 2011
I personally find all dressing rooms evil–communal or private. They are portals to the dimension of self-hatred and frustration.
lafemmeroar
May 20, 2011
You’re right Lisa. For me dressing room mirrors are evil. They tend to make one look bigger. Although I accept who I am in size, shape and form, it’s a bitter pill to swallow when the looking glass exaggerates your shape in all the wrong places.
Margie
May 20, 2011
I was told by someone that if our country ever faced a famine, the slim people would suffer horribly, while the pleasantly plump and up ones would do just fine.
That is why we should be happy when we look in the mirror – those few extra pounds are there for a purpose…
Mikey
May 20, 2011
I’d rather be fat and happy than scrawny and miserable. But more than anything I’d like to be fit and healthy. I think it is important to be able to run for a mile if the zombie apocalypse happens.
pegoleg
May 20, 2011
Isn’t the zombie apocalypse supposed to be tomorrow?
lifeintheboomerlane
May 20, 2011
I’m really confused at this point about what kind of apocalypse we are having: zombie, biblical, or the start of swimsuit season.
TexasTrailerParkTrash
May 20, 2011
Last night I watched an episode of “Absolutely Fabulous” where Edina is getting a spray tan in her home and has to remove her bra and underwear and stand against the wall in her bathroom. The technician starts spraying and then says “Take off your underwear!” Edina has to admit that she’s already done that. Both Edina’s friend, Patsy, and the technician recoil in horror and tell her to “lift your belly!”
That’s why I haven’t been in a communal dressing room since 1973.
merrilymarylee
May 21, 2011
We don’t have a Loehmann’s here any longer. Not enough women willing to get nekkid in front of each other, I suppose. I was one of them.
Do they still have that “no returns” rule?
lifeintheboomerlane
May 23, 2011
You can return, but it has to be within 30 days (or some amount of time). After that, you get a credit. No receipt=lastest price sold at and credit. I’m such a pro.
izziedarling
May 21, 2011
HILARIOUS! Would rather be hit in the head with a hammer than go the communal route. No way.
judithhb
May 22, 2011
Fortunately we no longer have communal dressing rooms or I certainly would get stuck besides a No 1 on your list.
absence of Alternatives
May 23, 2011
I have the same fear, esp. the ones about ripping the clothes or getting stuck. It has happened more than once I had to ask husb to please extract me by pulling the dress straight off from over my head. Good thing I always buy the clothes, bring them home, try on at home, and then return them afterwards. The great return policy is the best thing about U.S.A.!
lifeintheboomerlane
May 23, 2011
Because of my complete and total lack of any sense of direction or feeling for how things should go (I tend to do everything backward), I feel like I need a manual to wear some clothes. I have a strange-but-cute wrap top I bought in London. Every single time I put it on, it looks different. People think I have five of them. I really have gotten totally stuck in dressing rooms, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put tops on with liners and end up with extra body parts hanging from the garment.
absence of Alternatives
May 23, 2011
By the way, I wonder what her friend is like. Somehow I suspect that the friend wanted to use a spork on her too…
lifeintheboomerlane
May 23, 2011
It was someone she didn’t know. And when I said “That woman was hilarious (being sarcastic),” the other woman just stared at me. So I hated her too.
charlywalker
May 23, 2011
Anything with the word “communal” scares me…
great post!
pearlsandprose
May 23, 2011
So funny! I avoid communal dressing rooms like the plague. Thank heaven we can shop on line now.
Speaking of dinner parties, I once knew a woman who socialized regularly with her gynecologist. Could not. Do that.
The Good Greatsby
May 23, 2011
This is the first I’ve heard of communal dressing rooms. Maybe this is because I rarely try anything on. And maybe that’s why none of my clothes fit.
dufmanno
May 23, 2011
I’ve never been in a communal dressing room unless you count the backstage of Madison Square Garden.
So anyway, I’m always so focused on not leaving the tell tale marks of under arm deodorant all over the dress that I can’t focus on anything else.
She's a Maineiac
May 25, 2011
Hilarious post! (yet again) I have become stuck countless times trying on clothes and I panic instantly. Doesn’t help that I’m claustrophobic and under the illusion that I’m still 20 years old and 110 pounds.
justAdoreIt
May 27, 2011
no matter what you say!! i WISH i had curly thick hair… #jealous! lol
lifeintheboomerlane
May 27, 2011
Thanks for visiting Life in the Boomer Lane! OK, I hope you wake up one morning with curly hair. I do, I do.
pegoleg
May 27, 2011
I actually got stuck in a dress yesterday and called out your name for help in the middle of my sweaty, please-don’t-rip-$200-dress, panicky struggle.
Apparently you’re not like Underdog where you can hear these calls for help from thousands of miles away. Or maybe you can just hear Sweet Polly Purebred.
lifeintheboomerlane
May 27, 2011
Ohmygod, I hope you extricated yourself without doing damage to the dress or to yourself! And there is a new business for me. I can provide people with hotline number (for a large sum of money). Call me and describe your problem and I will wish you the best of luck.
Allison
May 30, 2011
I think that woman might be in my Pilates class. During floor bow, she complained to the instructor that something about it was rubbing up against the floor and hurting. The instructor informed her that the ‘something’ was in actually her bones.
Just say no to communal changing rooms. And yes to ice cream.
lifeintheboomerlane
May 30, 2011
At least my bones are well protected.