A Ladies Club for Doing Ladies Things

Yesterday I stumbled across the Old Fashioned Girls' Tea and Social Club.

The concept scares me a bit.

First, it's giving me flashbacks to that time when I accompanied a friend to youth group. (Cool Christian Teens high on red cordial & life do not a fun night make).

But the scariest thing is the fact that it crossed my mind that it would be fun. I actually thought that it seemed to be the kind of thing I'd be interested in.

Obviously, the sandwiches are a big draw card. Pretty much any food is made better in sandwich form. Free sandwiches are even better & the kind they give you at corporate events are just unspeakably good.* I blame my Aunt Doreen for the sandwich obsession. I was a chubby child, and my parents decided to deal with this by devising bizarre feats of endurance for me to complete before I could eat anything. (Oh, I so wish I were joking about that). Anyway, relatives took pity on me. Doreen once vastly overcatered to her son's birthday party & so, as we were leaving, handed me a plastic shopping bag full of sandwiches cunningly disguised by being wrapped in my ample jacket. It was an excruciatingly long trip home. And, after I'm sure I had to do 50 jumping jacks to counter the jelly & ice-cream I'd consumed, I went to bed and ate every last one of those bready little morsels. And thus sandwiches became a forbidden & much-coveted food.

But I digress.

After thinking about it for a little while, and realising that the activities enjoyed by the Old Fashioned Girls held no real attraction, I came to the conclusion that it was just the clothes that were doing it for me. I like dressing up. I really like dressing up. In historical dress. There should be more fancy dress parties. In fact, it should be socially acceptable to dress up in whatever period costume you fancy that day just to go about your normal business.** I'm sure there's some childhood trauma that's to blame.

On a different but related neurotic note, I'm always a little bit worried that I look slightly mannish, and that people are thinking I'm some kind of rubbish transvestite.

* Hint hint Benj, you greedy, sandwich-hoarding bastard.

** This has just made me remember a kid who appeared on Jim'll Fix It because his dream was to live in the 1800s. He wore a Victorian-style sailor suit outfit, and he apprently dressed in a similar fashion every day. I envied that kid. But I kept my true feelings hidden after my parents finally finished mocking sailorboy & speculating on his sexuality. I wonder what that kid's up to now.