Saturday, September 13, 2008

Indianapolis Once Again


This trip I could not take the chance of flying femme as my manager and another engineer were also going to be in the Indianapolis airport at the same time I was going to be there. I kept trying to convince myself that I could get away with it as they were on a different airline and leaving Austin much later than I was, but they had a direct flight which put them in the Indy airport only 8 minutes from my own flight. No way I could take that risk.
My first day there I got there at around 630PM. Considering my daughter was sick and had kept us up all night, I was way too tired to get dressed up and go out. Instead, I headed out shopping in drab.
I found what I thought might be a good gown for the Southern Comfort Conference on sale at Von Maur! It’s made by Calvin Klein and is long, black, with multiple floaty layers. It’s a gorgeous dress like those you see the actresses wearing on the red carpet, now the only question is how will a 43 year old (<sob>) male look in it? I’ve never tried clothes on in a store before but decided that I darn well would this time before I spent that kind of money, and so I decided I would wait for the next day and come in dressed to try it on. I also stepped in to a shoe store and admired some pretty shoes but saw nothing I couldn’t live with out. The amusing thing is that even though I was in boy mode the SA told me to let her know if there was anything I wanted to try on.







The following day I finished work, got dressed and returned to the mall to try the gown on. I started at Macy’s, my favorite store, and found a KILLER set of Mary Jane pumps and snatched ‘em up!






I then headed for Von Maur to put my courage to the test and try that gown on. Walking through the mall, the owner of one of the Kiosks more or less stalked me. As I’m walking by, he does the usual pitch.
“Excuse me, can I ask you a question?”, he says. I’ve learned to give short answers to these Kiosk types and then ignore them.
“No thank you,” I said. “I’m not interested,” and I kept walking. The man starts to follow me, gets quite a bit louder, and is very insistent!
“Why don’t you stop at my Kiosk? I have a chemical cream that works like botox that you will love!”
“No thank you!” I repeated, and continued walking. He does not give up. We are now at least 30 yards from his kiosk and he is following me down the mall walking next to me.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” he says with a huge smile on his face, clearly enjoying this very uncomfortable situation. I’m not amused any more and get blunt.
“No!” I said. He completely ignored the fact that I said no, and continues talking.
“Are you a lady?” he asks. His accent makes it clear that he is from the middle east somewhere, I suspect some place like Saudi Arabia or a similar country in that region. I don’t claim to know much about their culture, but I do know that crossdressing there would go over like a lead balloon, so I don’t know what his motivation is. Now I’m getting very nervous
“No, I am not” I said, still trying to be nice.
“Well you look like a lady to me. A very beautiful lady. I’ve always wanted to go to bed with a girly boy!” he confided.
“Well thank you very much but I’m afraid your going to have to keep looking because I’m married,” I replied while holding my wedding ring up for him to see. We did a little more back and forth and at last he walked away.

I got to Von Maur and picked out the size 12 and the size 14 versions of the dress, and with my heart in my throat, I approached the counter.
“Can I help you?” The SA askes with a genuine smile on her face.
“Do you mind if I try these on?” I asked her, my stomach flip flopping and heart still pounding.
“Of course,” she said, taking the gowns from me. “Please follow me!” She led me into the changing area, gave me a stall, and told me she would check on my in a moment. This was when I discovered that you have to be an acrobat and contortionist to put on a gown that has straps that cross behind your back! I tried both on and decided to go with the size 12. It is a little tight but I think a gown like this is supposed to be a bit snug.
As I was purchasing the dress, the SA asked if I had an event I was going to and I sort of giggled.
“Yes ma’am I do. Let’s just say that if you don’t like crossdressers you don’t want to be in Atlanta Georgia in a couple of weeks!”
As I was walking back up the mall to get to my car, the same guy started yelling across the way to me, and I do mean yelling.
"Hey! Hey pretty lady! Why don't you come to my store?" I more or less ignored him and kept walking. I don't think I care for this new trend of having insistent guys chasing me around - creepy.

The next day not much of interest happened. I dropped a skirt off for the hotel laundry and when I got off work around 6PM, I checked back for it and was told that the laundry wasn’t back yet. I got dressed up, went to dinner, and returned around 10PM to find a new girl behind the hotel counter. I told her I was checking to see if my skirt was back yet and she told me that no laundry had come in that day, but that she would leave a note for the next shift. Well the following morning I returned to the counter in boy mode to find another clerk there.
“Good morning,” I said, “I think y’all lost my laundry and I need to know what to do about it.” As I was saying this to him, the same lady I spoke to last night about it when I was “dressed” walked up behind him. He walked off to look and discovered my laundry bag and skirt were still there – they had never even been sent it off. As he handed me the bag, the lady from the night before started to laugh.
“Oh,” she said, “It’s a good thing you stopped by because I’d have sworn the woman that asked me for it last night said it was a skirt!”
I was so relieved that they hadn’t lost my new skirt, and also angry that they hadn’t sent it off to be cleaned, that it didn’t strike me until after I’d walked away. The young lady behind the counter had not realized that I WAS the woman that had asked for the laundry the night before. Cool!

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