swimsuit Shyness

名称：swimsuit Shyness
内容简介：
Dear Arizona,
　 I’m invited to a pool party, but I really don’t want anyone to see me in a swimsuit. Would it be rude to go to the party in my regular clothes and not get in the water?
　 — Shy in Sheboygan

Dear Shy,
　 Perfect timing! I just got over dealing with the same thing. My family was invited to a “Sizzling Summer-Barbecue Pool Party,” which, when I first heard about it, sounded incredibly fun. But that was before the depressing “shopping for new swimsuits” event occurred.

My mom had a swimsuit from an endof- summer sale last year, and my dad was fine with the same old trunks he’s had forever. If you ask me, my dad’s trunks are way too short and totally out of fashion, but he won’t even think about getting another pair. (Do you ever feel like your parents’ entire goal is to embarrass you to pieces?)

So anyway, my mom took my little brother and sister and me to the store, and we had approximately zero time to get our swimsuits. You’d think Tex would have been the easy one, being a boy and not all that into clothes. But here’s how the conversation between him and my mom went:

“How about these trunks, Tex?”

“No, I need Thunder-Bots ones.”

“Oh, look! These have a little pocket. Isn’t that neat?”

“No, I need Thunder-Bots ones.”

“I don’t think they even make Thunder-Bots trunks, Tex.”

“But I need Thunder-Bots ones!”

You get the idea.

Indi, on the other hand, was unbelievably easy. She found this sparkly rainbow swimsuit that fit her perfectly, and that was that.

“You should see if there’s one in your size,” she suggested. “Then we can match!”

“Um, I don’t think so,” I said, flipping through the racks and putting about 9,000 swimsuits in our cart.

“You’d better do a little less collecting and a lot more trying on,” my mom said, looking at her watch.

So I wheeled the cart over to the dressing room, and that’s when things got officially un-fun. To sum it up, everything looked beyond horrible on me!

“All set, Zonykins?” my mom called to me from the other side of the dressing-room door.

“I’m not getting a suit,” I grumbled. “I look bad in all of them!”

“My goodness!” my mom said. “Between you and Mr. Thunder- Bots here, we’re never getting out of this place!”

I knew there was no explaining it. My parents’ whole thing is that a person’s true beauty is on the inside, and that while it’s important to be healthy and clean and stuff, fussing too much about looks is just plain silly. In other words, I knew she couldn’t possibly understand. So I closed my eyes, grabbed some random suit, and promised myself I’d never be caught dead in the thing!

As you can probably guess, we never found those Thunder-Bots trunks. But my mom bought some red ones in Tex’s size, and after she sewed on a Thunder-Bots patch, Tex was as happy as could be.

The next day we got in the car and drove forever. (OK, it was actually about two hours, but it seemed like forever because Tex talked nonstop about Thunder-Bots the entire way! And the air conditioning in our car wasn’t working, so it was at least a cajillion degrees—I am not exaggerating!)

Of course, the second we got to the house, we all had to change into our swimsuits. Then everyone jumped into the pool—everyone except me, that is. I felt so weird in my new suit that I wrapped myself from head to toe in towels and sat in a lump by the pool.

“Hey, ’Zona,” my dad called. “Come in and play Marco Polo with us!”

“That’s OK,” I said, melting into a pitiful little puddle. “I’m good here, thanks.”

But I was about as good as a Popsicle in an oven. And eventually, when I just couldn’t take it anymore, I ditched the towels and jumped in. And— wow!—I’d never felt anything so great in my life! I swam and played and laughed—and pretty much just stopped caring about how I looked. Besides, before too long, we all put hats and T-shirts on so we wouldn’t get too much sun.

So, dear Shy, I’m not an expert or anything, but I can tell you what this whole experience taught me. First, unless you swim all the time, I think it’s normal to feel a little (or even a lot) funny when you first put on a swimsuit. But you are so not alone—everyone is probably feeling the same way! Second, there’s no law that says you can’t wear a big T-shirt over your swimsuit. I mean, it really does help protect you from the sun. And finally, since you’re the only one who even cares how you look, you might as well forget about it and have fun. In other words, if I were you, I’d go to that pool party and jump in!

Ciao for now,

Arizona