Honolulu Lite
Honolulu Lite
Throwing a (bad) fit
in the dressing roomNORTH Korean President Kim Jong Il has a long reach and absolutely no sense of humor. What else would explain how I ended up in trapped in an official Kim Jong Il (and I might say, "Il-fitting) uniform in a Sears dressing room and chances are I would still be there were I not a student of Harry Houdini?
Here's what happened: A week ago I wrote that Kim Jong Il is the only tyrant in the world whose official uniform is garage mechanic overalls. I've never understood why a nuclear maniac with a million-man army chooses to dress like a goofball. But there's Kim, watching parades of thousands of starving citizens marching down the street, waving flags and throwing flowers (plastic flowers or else they'd be eaten before the festivities began), dressed in his jump suit or whatever you call the dorky one-piece affair he sports.
Fast forward to the Sears Men's Apparel Department where your humble investigative humorist is looking for some heavy, long pants to wear while weed-eating. In a far corner I come across a selection of khaki overalls, just like the Great Adored Leader of North Korea wears! And I thought, hey, these might be nifty to whack weeds in.
So I take one to the dressing room.
NEVER HAVING worn a one-piece before, I wasn't sure how snug it was supposed to be. So I strip to my skivvies and waddle into the thing and, trust me, it was snug. I get one arm into a sleeve and kind of have to force the other arm in. Then I zip it up and voila! There I am looking like Jack La Lane gone to seed. Not only could I not whack weeds in this get up, I could hardly move. In fact, breathing was a struggle.
I pulled down the zipper and tried to get my arms out of the sleeves. No way. I grabbed at the fabric stretched tight across my shoulders but my fingers could get no purchase. I wriggled, pulled, stretched and flailed away at the garment to no avail. I had become its prisoner. Claustrophobia set in.
Sweating now, I zipped it up again and poked my head outside the changing room. My only hope was to flag down a clerk for assistance. But the Men's Apparel Department was as deserted as the plains after Shane road off into the sunset.
I heard a noise in the adjoining booth and considered asking the guy in there to help get me out of this thing. But every sentence that came to mind sounded too much like asking a stranger to undress me.
I tried to rip my way out but the fabric apparently was reinforced with Kevlar. Finally, dislocating a shoulder and wriggling into the shape of a human pretzel, I managed to escape.
Panting, happy to be alive and free, I returned the rumpled straight jacket to its evil perch so it might entrap another unwary fat man.
I left with a new understanding of Kim Jong Il and his clothing problem. It's not that he has no taste. I suspect he is stuck in his oil change rig and simply can't get out.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com