Wedding Dress Shopping With Lola

Yes, folks, it’s true: Lovely Lola was getting Married! There were many things she had to do: she had to pick a dress; she had to pick bridesmaids dresses; she had to pick bridesmaids. The one thing she didn’t need to pick was the groom. That was Oscar Olvidadizo, a tall, dark, handsome man Lola was head-over-heals-in-love with. So head-over-heels that there were times when she was talking to him on the phone that she would spontaneously turn a series of somersaults. This was a problem because she would get tangled in the phone cord. It was for this reason she switched to using a cordless phone or a cell phone in all of their telephone interactions, not because she was afraid of electric shock from the outlets, as has been reported by several news outlets; you should know better than to listen to rumors propagated by Inside Edition and Current Affair! Shame on you! Ahem. Where was I? Ah! Right here:

So finally Lola decided Wodin the Wise should be a bridesmaid, as should her Lovely sister, Claudette the Crazy, as well as Fluff. Lola was a little nervous to ask Fluff to be a bridesmaid on account of Fluff’s fame as a tenacious teddy bear and all, but when Lola asked her, Fluff just chucked Lola on the chin lightly and said, “Golly, li’l lady, I’se shore glad yeh asked me! Ah’d be honored as spit on a cricket to be your bridesmaid!” Lola smiled politely, then frowned as she turned away, because she had no idea if it was a good thing to be “as honored as spit on a cricket,” but Fluff had been smiling, so Lola just shrugged and decided to commence the search for the Perfect Dress.

Now, the Perfect Dress had several requirements: It had to be long, but not so long as to touch the floor—it had to just brush the tops of her shoes (which she also had to pick out). It also had to have three layers of ruffles, but it was more in fashion to have four. She wanted it to have bows all down the back, but that wouldn’t fit with the row of buttons she wanted. So she began to think that maybe her dress should have bows that covered each button, but she couldn’t decide. So she asked her Lovely Mother, Claudette, Wodin, and Fluff to join her in the hunt for the Perfect Dress.

It was a Saturday, bright and early, and Lola hadn’t slept all night in excitement and anticipation of traveling in search of the Perfect Dress. She dashed down the stairs, out the door and…

Slid on a patch of ice as long as the front walk. Lola wobbled. She bobbled. And eventually she hobbled. Hobbled, that is, because she twisted her ankle on the ice and she had to hobble back into the house. Her injury did not deter her, however, from her planned search. The ice, however, might have. But she had learned a great deal from Fluff, not the least of which was how to be tenacious. But more importantly, she had learned the Toilet Travel Method of getting from one point to another.

So, despite the ice, Lola grabbed her mother and bridesmaids and forcefully flushed them all to the first bridal shop on their list: Little Shop of Whores. It sounded scandalous, and it was. It had dresses that Lola would never have dreamed of putting on a Barbie, much less herself. Some of the dresses would have made Paris Hilton ask for more fabric. Lola and her entourage left as soon as they entered, all of them blushing furiously as they flushed themselves to their next destination: Ye Olde Shoppe of Bridal Trousseaux.

It was just darling! There were flounces, lacy bits, ribbons, and buttons galore. Lola reveled in the dresses. Wodin was easily distracted by the mother of pearl buttons on one dress, and Claudette kept trying on shoes, seeing which ones would make her taller than Stan (who, though not there, was the tallest of any of them). Claudette found one pair of nice stilettos that definitely made her taller than Stan, but they were also impossible to walk in. “I’m like a Spice Girl!” Claudette exclaimed while looking in the mirror. Wodin only momentarily looked over, but then was absorbed in the shiny buttons once again. Lovely Mother was busy looking at price tags, frowning, and saying things like, “Hmph. White dresses… Hmph. Weddings… snarbble grabble flax…Hmph.”

Fluff was moving quickly, though, and before they had been in the store five minutes, she had a pile of dresses taller than Lola stacked outside of a dressing room, and she was poking and prodding Lola into the dressing room, despite Lola’s protests that she wanted to look at other gowns. The first one made Lola look like a white frosted cupcake. Then next one made her look like a dollop of whipped cream on top of a sundae. And the third, in her words, made her “look like a pastry! A big, white, killer pastry on the loose!”

When she emerged from the dressing room in the fourth one, Claudette giggled, then poked Wodin in the ribs, who looked, and then giggled, and then looked at Lovely Mother, who was already giggling, and then Fluff keeled over laughing. “Stay…. Stay… Stay…!” was all Fluff could get out, but they all knew what Fluff meant was, “You look like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, if only he were female and not wearing that silly hat in that movie!”

Lola huffily took off her puffy dress, and then began snuffling and wailing, “I’ll never get meeee a dreesssssss!” Fluff had the presence of mind, despite her ongoing giggles, to help Lola out of her dress before she ruined it with tears.

When Lola was properly dressed again, she grabbed her friends and family and directed them to flush themselves to the next store on their list: Dress ‘N’ Bride.

Lola exited the on-premises restroom, and immediately sighed—she was in love! The store was covered in a white marble façade, inside and out. There were columns and arches, all of them marble. Each dress style had its own alcove, complete with lighting and rotating mannequin. If you wanted to try on the dress, you had to ask the proprietor, Bridal Shop Betty. Betty’s store was rather large, and so she traveled from one end to the other on an alabaster skateboard (Betty was very hip).

When the Bridal Entourage entered, Bridal Betty beamed and bounced up to them: “Who is the lovely bride? Oh, it must be this Lovely one right here; I can always tell a mile away; the bride is always the one with the goofy smile; which style do you like best, dear? Let me know if there’s anything you like; I carry all designers, fashions, and peculiar styles you could possibly want; I even have dresses that look like outfits on the Jetson’s (The Jetson’s was a popular bridal theme a few years ago); what’s your theme, dear?” However, Betty continued to ramble on without waiting for an answer, but Lola knew immediately which dress she wanted, for she could see it on a pedestal in an alcove near the back of the show room.

The desired dress was beautiful in Lola’s eyes: it had a long skirt, but it didn’t hit the floor. As it rotated, she could see that there were little ribbons tied in bows all down the back, and there were three layers of flounces on the skirt of the dress. She was in love. Eyes wide and mouth open, Lola simply walked up to the display and touched the sleeve of the dress. Fluff walked up, looked at the dress, looked up at Lola, then snapped, “Shut your mouth; you’ll catch flies.” Lola looked down, then shut her mouth quickly. Then she opened it again to say, “I want to try on this one.” Betty zoomed over on her alabaster skateboard, wrote down the model number, then called on her headset to the back room, “Wendy, we need dress A238J1 in a size 62 and ¾.” She then grabbed Lola’s elbow and dragged her towards a dressing room; Lola kept looking back over her shoulder, gaping at her dream dress. Lovely Mother looked at the price tag and began to grind her teeth. Claudette began perusing the shoes again, and Wodin became mesmerized with the tiara collection. Fluff followed Lola and Betty to the dressing room.

From the back, a rather block shaped woman in a blue dress brought the dress out. Fluff couldn’t see the woman behind the layers of ruffles, but there was something in how she said, “Here’s model A238J1 in a 62 and ¾,” that sounded familiar. When Lola took the dress, she turned and went into the dressing room, but Fluff looked closely at the block-shaped woman, and detected a distinct five-o’clock shadow. Fluff’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t that she disliked cross-dressers (she had known many a cross-dresser during her time in Vegas), but this one looked more than familiar. In catching each other’s eye, the block-shaped wo(man) winked at Fluff, who jumped back in shock. Then, a split second later, Fluff realized that it hadn’t been a wink—it had been a twitch! The only person Fluff knew who twitched at the sight of a tenacious teddy bear was none other than Wayne Newton!

The Disguised Wayne turned and began to go back to the back room, and Fluff frowned. “Lola,” she called into the dressing room, “wait a minute to try on the dress. There is something strange afoot at the Circle K…” and she followed the Masquerading Wendy into the stock room.

Because of her soft fluffy feet, Fluff made nary a sound. Once in the stock room, Fluff ducked behind a dress that looked remarkably like the Stay-Puft dress of the last shop and watched as Wendy removed her wig to fully reveal herself as Wayne. “Hahahahaha!” cackled Wayne. “I will let that silly Lola girl try on this dress in the proper size, but then on the day of the wedding when she goes to put it on, I will have ordered the incorrect alterations! My plan, she is brilliant!” Wayne continued cackling, and then began to prance and hum “Tip-toe Through the Tulips,” which, if you remember correctly, was the very song that Fluff and Friedrick had once tap-danced to. In fact, they had tap-danced on Wayne Newton’s forehead to that song. Fluff, for the second time in this story, narrowed her eyes, and muttered to herself, “That’s the last tip-toe you’ll tulip on… I mean, that’s the last tulip you’ll tip-toe on, Wayne, buddy!” She then ducked back to the dressing room to tell Lola to go ahead and try on the dress.

Lola tried on the dress, and she left the dressing room to the oohs and aahs of her Bridal Entourage. Fluff, however, kept a wary eye out for the treacherous Wayne/Wendy. Fluff had a plan: She would go to the reactor at the center of the Death Star and turn off the tractor beam so that Han, Luck, Leia, and Chewbacca (of course Chewbacca) and the droids could escape without detection and then Obi Wan and Darth would… Oops. That’s the other story Fluff has constantly running through her head. What she really had planned was this:

She was going to ask Betty for one size smaller, just so that Wendy/Wayne would be forced to come back out, and then, Fluff would climb the Villain of Vegas, rip off his wig to expose his identity and forehead, and then tap-dance on his forehead until he was unconscious. It was a beautiful plan.

Lola was doing one more twirl when Fluff hollered, “Betty, let’s see this bad boy in a 61 and ¾, okay?” Lola frowned. “But this one fits perfectly.” Fluff grinned tightly, baring her sharp bear’s teeth (yes, she is a teddy bear, but she is still a bear, after all). “I just want to see a smaller size, okay?” she said through her clenched teeth. Lola looked frightened; she had never seen Fluff with all of her teeth showing before. Lola simply nodded.

In the meantime, Betty had called back to “Wendy” in the back room to bring a smaller size. Wendy brought out the dress, and as soon as she/he had hung it on the rack, Fluff growled, then leapt up and tackled Wendy to the floor, and ripped off the wig. Betty gasped. It was a loud enough sound to bring Wodin out of her tiara-induced stupor and look over. Claudette wobbled on really tall shoes and looked over. Lovely Mother stopped balancing her checkbook and looked up. Lola peeked around the door of the dressing room (she was only wearing a slip).

Standing on the dazed Wendy’s forehead, Fluff held the wig over her fluffy head and proclaimed, “Wendy is really Wayne!” A collective gasp rose from the Bridal Entourage, and Betty simply said, “Who?”

Wayne began to whimper. Fluff sneered. “Wayne wanted to ruin your wedding, Lola, to get back at me and Friedrick. But I refuse to let this happen. Not when I was as honored as spit on a cricket to be a bridesmaid.”

Wayne began to beg, “Please, Ms. Fluff, please, not the tap-dancing. Not the tap-dancing!” His begging turned to hysterical screaming: “No tap-dancing! No taps!” Fluff bared her teeth, then grabbed a pair of very tall, pointy shoes and began to tap-dance on Wayne Newton’s forehead. As she tapped, Claudette and Wodin began to sing “Tip-toe Through the Tulips.” Their singing was quite nice. When Wayne was unconscious, Fluff, Wodin, and Claudette dragged his limp body to the toilet and flushed with all their might. Lola changed her clothes, and Lovely Mother signed the check. Claudette then looked at the shoes Fluff had danced in and said, “Hey, I think these are the perfect shoes for the bridesmaids! Let’s get three pairs!” And so it was done.

That night, as the Bridal Entourage lay on the couch in a pizza-induced stupor watching the evening news, they took notice of an interesting item:

Dan Rather shifted his gaze to another camera, and said, “Strange news in the world of Wayne Newton this evening. Wayne was found in the bathroom of the Mirage casino in Las Vegas dressed in a woman’s dress and bearing what appeared to be bruises in the shape of shoe prints on his forehead. He was admitted to a local area hospital where his current status in unknown. According to witnesses, he was rambling incoherently about wedding dresses.” Dan Rather looked back at the first camera. “This is the latest in a string of unusual incidents surrounding the Las Vegas singer, best known for his rendition of “Danke Schon.” As Dan Rather began to report on other news, Fluff reached for the remote and turned it off.

She smiled sweetly and said, “I’ll be a tick on a deer if I’ll let Wayne get the better of me.” Lola nodded, and the rest of them patted their full bellies. It had been a successful day.


Stay tuned for next time, when the Wedding Takes Over, Lola cries on Merv’s shoulder, the bridesmaids revolt, and Friedrick buys a gift.

Brought to you by the letter F, the number 2, and the Friedrick and Fluff Variety Show (What? If Nick and Jessica can have their own Variety Show, why not Friedrick and Fluff?)

And that is that.