Anecdotes: The Mother Ship and the Mabie True Friendship Test

Let’s get some records straight: I can assemble a PC, I can fix a radio and other electronic devices with some duct tape and sheer will, I can reach stuff on high shelves, and I can execute a left hook. I can even build websites, write copy and short stories, and *gasp* sing in tune. Despite all of these things I know about and can satisfactorily accomplish, I do not know anything about fashion.

One night, Mabie ‘dragged’ me to accompany her shopping at Greenbelt.

Have you ever been to a place where everybody else speaks another language and everybody looks in amusement every time you make an innocent comment? In the Ally McBeal universe, you’d suddenly find a sign pointing at you in great neon lights saying EEJIT. If you have been there, or imagined the scenario to some extent, then congratulations, you have been to the Mother Ship. A Mother Ship is simply a place that contains something your friends like and can talk about in great detail. They can go on and on about how each and every item in that place is made, works, or looks and how each is different from another slightly different item – you get the picture.

While at Zara, my brain was going through the sequences of Fight or Flight: Hoshit, hoshit, hoooshit. Wait, stay calm. Stay perfectly calm, no sudden movements, don’t make eye contact. We’re fine, we’re okay. Nobody has come near armed with a flimsy tube top with sequins yet. Yeah, we’re good, we can do this.

Then Mabie presents me with the Mabie True Friendship Test, a test that involves me, the fashiontard bereft of all fashion-sense whatsoever, finding a dress for Mabie to wear on her birthday party. Ahh, the pressure. Again, I can take a street food test, an “I’ll stay with you while you hug the toilet and hurl in aforementioned toilet bowl inside a tiny bathroom,” and even an “I can administer first aid while cursing you to attempt suicide without me around next time” true friendship tests. With the Mabie True Friendship Test however, I was sure I was going to fail. And spectacularly at that.

At another Mother Ship, the Top Shop, I found this body hugging number that looked like it was made from torn strips of fabric sewn haphazardly together. Apparently, it was a dress. Well, I just looked at it. Ten minutes later, Mabie comes along with the dress in question. She does a mock fitting by slipping her head through the space between the hanger and the dress’ neckline. I wondered for a bit if that was common practice in those strange lands, but my ignorance of local customs was cleared up once Mabie realized she has been walking around the store with a dress hung around her neck by the hanger and immediately removed it.

Sir David Attenborrough voice-over: Look at the Mabie in her natural habitat.

What, you thought I was kidding?

I should also tell you the story about the Four-Inch Comfy Heels Mabie fell in love with at Top Shop that led to a confiscation of credit cards, but maybe next time.

Oh right, Mabie ended up buying the dress and wearing it to her It Was All A Blur Party. And that was how I passed the Mabie True Friendship Test by the skin of my nails. Bow.