Oh my goooooshhhhhh...I'M CATHY.

When I was a kid, I used to love reading the cartoon section of the newspaper every night and on Saturday mornings. 

And you know, come to think of it, I didn't get a lot of what was in there.  Like Doonesbury.

I was like, huh?  But I still read them.

Every now and then, when I'm at my parents' house (I don't take the newspaper), I'll flip over to the cartoon section and read it.

And I still don't get Doonesbury.

We all have our strengths.  Political awareness is not mine.

When my family was in China, we would skype friends and family every now and then.  Once, I missed a call from my dear friend, Megs.  I felt bad.  There's an area in skype that you can instant message people, so I wrote her a message, something like, "Aack!  I missed your call!  I'm so sorry!"

Her husband, Mark, was near Megs's computer and heard my instant message noise and responded something like, "'Aack'??  Who are you, Cathy?"

I got the reference right away.  Cathy, the cartoon, used to say that all the time:  "Aack!"

 I realize that I don't use "aack" in real life.  Only in written form.  Which is weird.  In real life, I kind of do an "Aaaaaa" sound in those situations.

Anywho, I wrote back to Mark.  "You remember Cathy????"

"Oh yes," responded Mark.  "She used to always say 'aack' and try on string bikinis at the store.  I hated her."

I laughed so hard.  I had forgotten about the string bikinis!!

I hated that, too.  As a child, I kept thinking, "Ew.  Ain't nobody got to see that."

Fast forward 25 years.

We're going to Belize next month, and I have only one swimsuit, which I hate.  I got it at Wal-Mart at the last second last year, and it looks like crap.  So Ben's all, "Why don't you go and get two swimsuits for our upcoming trip, one for drying and one for wearing, since we'll be in swimsuits nearly every day?"

He kept telling me that I should buy a bikini.

I said, "Ew.  Ain't nobody got to see that."

Really, it's kind of him to think so highly of my body.  But for reals.  Bikinis and I are not a good match.

I told my friend Kathleen I was going to go shopping for swimsuits, and she gave me her condolences.  She knows what it's like to go swimsuit shopping.

I mean, I used to like to go swimsuit shopping, back when I was a size 7 and everything looked good on me.

Now, it's a much trickier business.

It took me a couple of hours, but I finally found two that don't make me look like a stuffed sausage:

Now I just need to buy some chafing cream at the grocery store.  We've discussed chafing before on this blog, haven't we?

Aack.