Tube Top Mystery

by Patti


The other night, I finally decided to attempt to make sense of the embarrassing disaster that is currently my closet. I folded the bunches of clothes that had somehow snowballed into one giant lump of fabric, began separating out the winter and summer clothes, and took a depressing inventory of my shoes, which, at this point, looked like rejects in the Salvation Army bin. During this process, I found an old tube top -- are they even CALLED that anymore - and my mind wandered back to what feels like a thousand years ago......

My friend Janie and I had just finished a singing gig at a hotel, and we had plans to meet up with M at Crobar - yes, it was that long ago - to go dancing. We were still in our jobbing cocktail wear, and we definitely wanted to hoochify it up to the club-level, but we had left our change of clothes in the car. It was winter, and at least 938 degrees below zero, and it was kind of blizzarding, so there was no way in hell we were going to shlep to the car, grab the goods, shlep back into the hotel to change, and THEN shlep once again BACK to the car. So, once we got out to the car, we decided to just crank up the heat and change in the parking lot. We each wrestled ourselves out of our respective clothes and wriggled into the hooch-wear, and hit the road.

Once there, I had to make sure I had all of my things together since, after the club, I was going to go home with M and Janie was going to go her way. I packed the red sparkly skirt I had worn, my high heels, and... "Hey! I can't find my tube top!"I frantically lifted myself off the seat to see if I had somehow sat on it. Not there. Janie turned on the light in the car and we both searched the backseat, under our seats, INSIDE the seats. Janie checked her bag to see if she had accidentally packed it, but it wasn't there. "What the hell?"

In the distance, I could see that M was already standing in front waiting for us, looking a little purple. The wind was blowing and the snow was flying everywhere, and he was hopping from foot to foot trying to stay warm. Torn between my love for my tube top and saving my husband from frost bite, I reluctantly chose my husband and sadly decided to end the search. "When you find it, just bring it to the next gig," I sighed. We got out of the car, Janie in her super-short mini-skirt, and me in my tight pleather dress with a zipper up the front, and begged our way into the club.

Once inside, my chest immediately felt the vibration of the Saturday night bass. BOOM-CH-BOOM-CH-BOOM-CH-BOOM-CH. The 3 of us made our way up the long stairs that led up to the second floor, and as we climbed, I noticed that my dress felt kind of... tight. "Weird," I thought. "It fit last week..." I ran my hands over my hips to try and smooth it down, and immediately felt the tire around my torso. Had I gained 30 lbs in one hour? I kept running my hands over my waist and hips, alternately mystified and horrified. Finally, no longer able to take it, I stuck my hands up my dress and groped myself. Suddenly, I felt something squishy, something... fabric-like. I grabbed hold of it and yanked it down and out and, just like that, I GAVE BIRTH TO A TUBE TOP ON THE STAIRS AT CROBAR!

I immediately doubled over in laughter. Janie and M were ahead of me and turned around when they heard my hysterics. I couldn't even talk; I just held up the tube top in all its glory. M looked more stumped than usual, but Janie totally lost it.

And there we were, laughing our assess off, the bass thumping in our hearts, my recovered tube top dancing wildly in my hand.