There is nothing quite like squeezing your body into a bathing suit when you’ve put back twelve packages of Peeps this season.

“You know how your father is, he won’t like that suit,” a mother, sitting on the filthy floor of the Target dressing room, said to her 12 year old daughter every two minutes when she came out to display a new piece of swimwear.  Cheers to ambiance.

Yes, I chose to do the bathing suit shopping for my upcoming vacation at Target.  Their branding team has convinced me that it’s cool enough for me to be seen in the store, and with the state of my body I didn’t want to invest in anything of higher cost.  The Midwest winter has left me without self-control.  It’s easier to eat Peeps than not to eat them, and now that I’m old enough to drive, I can get them whenever I want.  When I was in first grade I stole a marshmallow-filled chocolate egg from Walgreens.  My parents never let me have junk food snacks at lunch.  Carrots, celery, even the occasional pretzel rod to really get things dehydrated – all those snacks came in my lunch bag, but each day at snack time I’d uncrinkle that brown paper and in slow motion peer over the cusp into the abyss that might, just that one day, contain a piece of candy.

One March in 1986, I could take it no longer.  We were in Walgreens for a routine trip to stick our arms in the air bladder blood pressure machine.  With each ‘pfft’ of the machine that was confused at the two small, unmeasurable arms, I became more and more convinced that a marshmallow filled egg would satisfy me for life.

Placing bathing suits directly in front of the entrance of the store is a horrible idea.  Being seen shopping for bathing suits is the same as being seen coming out of the bathroom.  Everyone does it but it’s a sharing moment for nobody.  I’m not at my best with two armfuls of small plastic hangers and spandex.

The egg theft happened.  I enjoyed that marshmallow egg.   I didn’t understand it as a theft until years later.  I confessed to my mom in college. Both the egg eating and eventual confessing were fully satisfying.

Three laps in and out of the dressing room later I accepted a polka dot suit as the only option.  I’ve been seeing spots everywhere lately.  Spots are super-hip.  Bored with the usual? Add spots.  Feeling chubby? Add spots.  Last weekend I enjoyed this excellent spotted wall in Grand Rapids.

It's easier to paint them than wear them.

I also saw this giant spot, know to many as the Sun, for the first time in months.  Exaggeration is for people that live in sunny places. This was a feat.

It does exist.

Finally, the local grocery store, which also happens to be a behemoth that two Wal-Marts could fit inside, presented this gem in the cranberry juice section.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to get a photo of my spotted swimsuit.

Free the giraffes into their native cranberry bog habitats.