When I packed my bag on Friday evening I couldn't find my swimsuit (maybe left at a hotel last fall?) and had to throw in my backup suit. It's seen better days and by this morning I was feeling very uneasy. The suit looked as though it could fall apart at any time and leave me in a compromised ... if not compromising ... position.
I have thought about Hazel Morse a lot over the last couple of days, as the suit's fragile state became increasingly evident. Miss Morse was an older lady in my home town of Temiscaming who loved to swim, usually the early morning or late afternoon, always around the area we called "first pier" at the Temiscaming waterfront. Miss Morse was not so fat as she was elderly and flabby. She wore a bathing cap with a large flower on the side but Miss Morse's real distinguishing feature was her bathing suit.
The garment was extremely large but it fit loosely over her body, such that I always wondered if it would stay up and on. Morever, the fabric was full of holes. The item looked as though it had been chewed by moths, and as the years passed the holes increased in both size and number. And yet Hazel never got a new suit.
Today, my own "spare" mercifully made it through my morning swim. We headed up to St. Petersburg to Penney's this morning and I had two new swimsuits in a matter of minutes. I am not a JCP shopper (or, really, any kind of shopper) but I was in no position to be fussy.
Now I don't have to worry about being the next viral sensation on YouTube. The old suit is in the trash.
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