The Value of A Dollar

Now, what’s a gell to do when she looks in the mirror and nothing says “Yess!!” to her?

Stella and Cannes know they’re the sexiest girls in Magmaville. You could dress Stella up in anything from a sequined blue ballgown to a sack cloth, heck even wrap her up in toilet paper and she’d rock the look to the hilt. That said, tho, Stella’s her own toughest critic when it comes to getting dressed for any occasion. Whatever she wears has to say “Yess!!” when it’s reflected back to her.

She confided to Janet one day, “It might look acceptable to you, but if at the best it is merely o.k., does that mean I’ll be feeling it at all? Believe me, it’s better for me when what I see staring back from the mirror says ‘Yess!!’ to me…just to let me know that what I’m wearing at the moment is a good idea.”

That’s not an easy task for Stella. Even when her blood sugar levels are a.o.k., that’s no guarantee that the way she sees herself will be.

It gets worse when she gets bored with all her clothes. Having to choose between cooler looking new clothes and her basic diabetes management supplies always leaves her frustrated. Her health must always remain top priority. Unfortunately, the budget for that leaves very little for clothing, shoes, and fashion accessories.

“It’s a good thing Cannes likes to do my make-up.” Stella thought one day as she reflected on what her budget can cover and what it cannot.

Now, St. Luke’s Seaside Episcopal Church has a massive rummage sale about 2 – 3 weekends every year, and there is rarely any shortage of reasonably cool looking clothes that she can mix and match to create some very, very kickass styles. The very last hour of these church-sponsored rummage sales is particularly enticing for many of the good citizens of Magmaville, because that’s when the $1/bag sale commences. For $1.00 you can fill a big paper grocery sack to capacity with anything available for sale at the church.

The Yossarians often score big during this “11th hour melee,” and when I say melee, I mean Melee! It’s guaranteed pandemonium in the parish hall once the dollar a bag sale starts. Even more so when the Yossarian sisters begin to rifle through the neatly folded piles of pants, shirts, dresses, leggings; boxes of lingerie, socks, and belts; shoes ranging in styles, some maybe worn once and forsaken, others look as if they’ve been through boot camp hell.

And it’s even more pandemonious when Milo and Punk Mother join in on the fun. Come to think of it, one can never tell whether the Haskins are really interested in getting some newish threads or just love mucking about over there. Because more often than not, Milo especially will go through a neatly folded pile – which some dear little old lady has folded and stacked for the umpteenth time that day – and examine this item and that one…only to casually toss it back randomly on the table and pass random judgments like, “Crap!,” “Roobbish!,” “Oooer!,” and “Ardee fookin kiddin’ loik?”

Now, in Milo’s defense, just about everyone going to these $1/bag sales is guilty of pulling the same shit. Milo, however, tends to give the impression of enjoying every second that he makes the elders suffer.

On the one hand Punk Mother does feel a bit sorry for the poor geezers who have to clean up the mess that is constantly left for them during the course of these sales. But on the other hand she does find the chaos extremely amusing to watch.

Between you and me and everyone else reading this right now, folks, I don’t think Lenora ever got over the moment when she was trying on a button down oxford shirt, praying, “Please say ‘yess!’ to me,…please let it say ‘yess!!’ to me…” At that moment, some well-meaning volunteer tossed her this butt fuck ugly pastel colored 2 piece sweatsuit right in front of her with the suggestion that this outfit might look good on her. :-s :-/

It’s not that the old coot meant to be rude or anything. After all, Punk Mother is often brash and bawdy herself. It’s just that the old coot has no taste in clothes at all. I mean, c’mon now…

Pastels?!? Blucch!

So you see why she’s not the least bit inclined to pull Milo aside with a very, very strong suggestion to give the poor dears a break coz they’re not used to folding the same articles of clothing 20 times per hour. As bad as she felt for them, maybe that’s just what some of them deserve for acting as self appointed personal stylists, she thought.

Besides, it’s always good for a laugh to watch her husband make a right prat out of himself. Anyway, if she wanted a fashion consultant, all she has to do is hook up with either one of Stella or Cannes’ gay pals. For their part Kyle and Simon – for an obvious example – are no less notorious for being particular about what they wear on their bodies than Milo is. At the best, if they see what pleases their eyes they might say, “Well, that might work…” or “Now we’re talking!” or “Oooh, that looks yummy!!” Anything less than stellar and they’ll be all like, “blucch!!” or “Eyew!!” or “Pfft!” A particularly bad outfit might cause Simon to emit dry heaving noises…or at the very least snarl “Diss-gusting!!! Somebody needs to take out the trash already!!!”

One afternoon Simon had decided he’d had it up to heeere with all the old folks shoving one bad outfit after another right in his face, threw up his hands and damn near bellowed, “Whose idea is it to shove such horrible clothes in my face?!? Does no one see the outrage of it all??? Lissen, ladies, I don’t care how you deface your own bodies as long as I don’t have to look at it, but PLEASE!! Kindly stop throwing these turds in my face if you don’t mind!!!”

Now it’s hard to tell whether Simon had come to vent this level of frustration out of a drop in his blood glucose that might begin to border on the fucking close to danger zone, or that he’s just too impeccable in his taste in clothes. Didn’t matter to Milo, tho. Upon hearing Simon rant, Milo detected a kindred troublemaker spirit in him. He got this glint in his eye as he picked up this really tacky looking, badly worn hawaiian shirt and yelled, “Oi, ye there!! Troy dis ohn f’soize, ye flymen queen, ye!!” With that he hurled it in Simon’s general direction.

“Oh yeah?!? Well, this is soo you, honey!!” Simon retorted as he flung an underwire bra – size 42DD to be exact – right at Milo’s head. He’s got rather impeccable aim, too!

“Oh, this is gonna be great fun!!” Simon thought.

No doubt you can see how the general chaos evolved from that point on. Underpants, socks, belts, purses, panty hoses, shirts, shorts, skirts, pajamas, and pant were flying through the parish hall in every possible direction…to the chagrin of the volunteers who have spent the whole damned weekend folding and neatly piling up all those clothes again and again and again. The only difference between what went down during the buck a bag sale and the food fight scene in Animal House is that at least nobody had to wash the walls or scrub the floor afterwards.

Even so, it was enough for the volunteer coordinator to unceremoniously escort the two most guilty culprits – Milo and Simon – out of the parish hall. “And don’t come back…” she ordered in a raspy, voice no doubt ravaged by all the chain smoking she’d done since birth, which made her sound like, well, geez, I can’t decide whether the voice resembles Harvey Fierstein, Capt. Beefheart, or a considerably more effeminate version of Steve-O, “…until you learn how to properly conduct yourselves in public!!!”

“Wull, cor blimey, Missuz! Ye’re nae foon a’toll!”

“D’aaah, go trash a motel room, ya rocknroll has-been!!” The old lady could be heard bellowing in that Fierstein/Beefheart/Steve-O voice of hers.

Despite the mayhem Simon and Milo did manage to take home some sweet-arsed threads. After all, damn near everyone was at the rummage sale – save for Janet and Rich who were off on another video shoot. And Kyle and P.M., both knew their respective partners well enough not to come home with some loot.

Anyway, back at the loft above The Stud, Simon – along with Cannes, Stella, Pearl, and Kyle – were trying on their whole entire newly acquired wardrobe. At times they were even trying on each others newly purchased clothes, shoes, and other accessories.

And I must say Simon looked particularly fetching in that blue velvet gown of his, which very closely resembles the evening gown that Isabella Rossellini wore in Blue Velvet. It was sleeveless with blue velvet straps criss-crossing his bare back. A blue velvet collar wrapped around his neck and from there the rest of the gown cascaded into place. This Simon topped with a black knit hoodie sweater. which was threadbare in places with shaggy black trim around the cuffs and edge of the hood. He added a red feather boa, a long strand of silver colored mardi gras beads, pearl drop earrings, red high heeled strappy sandals with stilletto heels…and Hey Presto!

“Well, don’t I look fucking gorgeous!!!” Simon exclaimed.


So after hitting several thrift stores in Magmaville, looking for some cool threads, the sisters Yossarian decided it was about time for a toilet break. For a change, neither one of them felt a need for multiple rest stops throughout much of the day. In fact, this might’ve been about the 3rd such break at the most that they’ve had all day…the last one being about 2 ½ hrs ago or longer. But no matter; they were both about to burst one way or another.

The last thrift store they visited was conveniently located across the street from Magmaville City Park. The girls then made their way across the street to the restroom. Upon their arrival they found the ladies room locked, to their chagrin. Stella immediately made a beeline for the men’s room. Cannes didn’t bother talking her out of that, but instead followed her over there. Both of them had been through too many moments when they were waiting desperately in front of a locked ladies room door. Then some random female stranger would come up behind them and – not wanting to wait in line behind them – go straight into the men’s room ahead of them. And of course that toilet would typically be vacant. This of course not only prolonged the always agonizing wait, but they ended up feeling really stupid on top of that.

Yeah…ouch!

Well they’re not making that dumbass mistake anymore. Sure enough the mens room was open and the girls went in together. Cannes let Stella go first. She’d probably finish pissing in less time than Cannes can take a crap. So Stella finished first and then Cannes took her turn. Then a thought occurred to Stella;

“Now, what shall our strategy be in case we see some dudes waiting outside?”

“I dunno, Stell…” Cannes replied as a fart shot out of her ass. “Maybe we should act like dudes when we come out. After all, we’ve had plenty of practice during our slumber parties. Either that, or maybe seduce whoever’s out there.”

“Oh yeah, that would go over great with Jarvis. He’s still not entirely over my so-called infidelity with Simon.” Stella countered. This was before she had broken up with Jarvis, by the way.

“Hey, it’s his own fault for being too drunk to fuck!” Cannes pointed out, referring to Jarvis. She was tempted to call him Jar-head, but realized he might take that as a compliment.

“All the same…we better stick with the dude imitations!” Stella insisted.

“Agreed…They might be creeps anyway.” With that the girls chortled and snickered.

Cannes finished her business and the girls proceeded to exit the john. Sure enough there were a couple of dudes outside the door waiting their turn. Cannes and Stella did their best to sound like dudes when they bantered.

“Fuckin’ A, dude! My back teeth were floating!”

“Yeah, dude. Those whippaccinos will do that to ya every time, know what I’m sayin’?”

“Yeah, ya only rent the waters of life, man…knowhutamean?”

“Whatever, dude! Hey, let’s go get some brewskis, man!”

“Yeah, let’s go fuck some bitches, dude! I got a fuckin’ hard-on!”

“Me too, I gotta hella boner I wanna bury in some fuckin bitch, dude!”

All that crazy banter did was generate some really strange looks from the guys that were waiting lin line. Maybe one of these random dudes was wondering upon hearing that “My God, are we really that pathetic?”

And then again maybe not. Who know? Who cares? We’re wasting valuable shopping time.