Dressed to Kill
We now rejoin Kate at her
session with
her wedding therapist, Mr. Jones.
"So I heard this story from my cousin.
It is about a bride's dress on her wedding day," Kate said slowly.
"Alright then, tell me the whole
story."
"Well, it begins with a woman
named
Anna. She was getting married in a month and was shopping for a wedding
dress. Anna did not have much money so she decided to go to a thrift
shop and see if they had any white dresses. I can totally
understand why she went to a thrift store. Weddings these days are so
very expensive. I think I am going to be broke after my wedding!
When she arrived she did
not see anything that struck her. She knew she would have limited
choices but she was hoping she would at least like the dress she
picked. She was just about to leave when her eyes noticed something
white in the back corner of the store. It was a beautiful white dress
covered with sequins. Anna grabbed it immediately and tried it on. It
fit her perfectly. The only problem was that the dress had a faint
smell to it. She
thought the smell would dissipate before the wedding. So, she bought
the dress.
If I found a smelly dress that I really liked I would buy it too. I
would think the smell would go away after steaming it. I could make the
same mistake Anna made!
A month later, it was time for Anna's
wedding. She was so excited she could hardly wait to put her dress on.
She could not believe she found such a beautiful dress at a thrift
store! At about
four in the afternoon,
she
arrived at the church and put her dress on. Her wedding started at five
and she was getting ready for pictures before. After her dress
was on,
she heard a knock at the door. It was the repair man from their church.
He told her that
the air conditioning in the church had just stopped working
and he would do his best to fix it before the wedding. Anna
was a little bummed but decided not to let the air
conditioning bother her that day.
I could totally see something going wrong like this at my wedding. Some
tiny glitch could completely ruin my wedding!
After taking pictures with her
bridesmaids and grooms, she was beginning to feel faint. She figured it
was a combination of nerves and heat. She sat down on a pew and one of
her bridesmaids sat with her. Almost immediately the bridesmaid
jumped back and asked what the terrible smell was. Anna thought the
smell was her so she went to a back room where she could take her dress
off and cool down before the wedding.
Right before the wedding was
about to
start, Anna put on the dress. She thought the smell was a little
better.
She made it through the entire ceremony. She did not notice the smell
again till the reception. The reception room was terribly hot. She had
danced to about four songs when she started to feel faint again. She
told her husband that she needed a break. She was feeling sick to her
stomach and faint. She couldn't stand it anymore. She asked her husband
to get her a cab to the hotel and told him to wrap up the reception. It
took all her strength to get in and out of the cab and walk to the
hotel room. As soon as she got the room she fell on the bed. She was
feeling worse than she had before. She closed her eyes and was about to
pass out when she thought she heard a voice. It was mad and bitter.
"GIVE ME BACK MY DRESS. IT BELONGS TO THE DEAD."
Much later that night, Anna's
husband
discovered her dead on the bed. No one knew what had caused her sudden
illness, so the coroner ordered an autopsy. The autopsy showed that
Anna
had been poisoned by the formaldehyde that had entered
her open pores while she was dancing. The toxic chemical had caused
blood
clotting and stopped all blood flow. The coroner asked the husband
where Anna had gotten the dress. The husband replied she had gotten it
from the thrift shop.
An hour later Anna's husband and the
coroner arrived at the same thrift store where Anna had been a month
ago.
They questioned the pawnbroker for a while until he finally told them
it
had been sold to him by a man who had stolen the dress from the body of
a dead girl right before she was put underground."
"What a story, Kate! Do you
believe it?" asked Mr. Jones.
"Yes, I believe it" retorted
Kate.
"It sounds like the dress was haunted,
right, Kate?"
"Yes."
"Well, a dress cannot be haunted. You
already told me you are buying your dress from David's Bridal, which is
not a thrift store. Stores do not sell
clothes that have been used for funerals. Formaldehyde is a very
distinct
smell. It is impossible not to notice it. You need to
concentrate on relaxing. Is shopping for a dress
really stressing you out?
"Yes, it really is. I have been
shopping alone because everyone is busy! I understand that it is the
holiday season and everyone is out shopping but when I am alone I
remember the story. After an hour of shopping I begin to feel
sick and
have to leave the store."
"There is the problem, Kate! Make time
to schedule dress shopping with friends and family. If you are
surrounded by friends and are not thinking about that story I think you
will find a dress! Wedding
dress shopping should be fun."
"I guess I could call my best friend
and see when she is free. It is just a hassle to work around everyone's
schedule. Schedules stress me out. BUT if you really think this will
work and get me over my fear I will try and go shopping with friends.
"Good, Kate! I think you need to call some friends as soon as we are
done here. Okay?"
"Okay, okay. Now can
we talk about the reception? I am having major issues with the
reception..."
Author's Note: I did not
change
the urban legend. I just added in more details to the story. This story
is NOT true. You would be surprised at how many stories involve
clothing that poisons others. The origin for this story came from the
story of Hercules. He was poisoned by a robe his wife had dipped in the
blood of a past lover. There is another story about a sorcerer named
Medea. She sent a
poisoned robe to a woman her husband had divorced her for. In the
film
Elizabeth, a poisoned dress
(meant for the queen) kills one of the
ladies in waiting. All those stories deal with anxiety and sexual
jealousy. I modernized the story by making it about the anxieties that
come along with wedding planning. This story is also different from the
ancient myths because the bride is planning her own wedding instead of
hiring a wedding planner.
I had Kate tell the story. After the story I had her therapist figure
out that she was stressed about finding a wedding dress. This put extra
stress on Kate and caused her to stop shopping for a dress. The story
gave her a reason to quit shopping. The story was a way for her not to
admit her real source of anxiety. The real source of anxiety was
shopping by herself. When Kate relieves her own anxieties by shopping
with friends she will no longer be affected by the story.
Image Information:
Anna's Wedding Dress. Sydney's
Vintage Clothing
The Spirit of the Dress. Swiss
Toni's Place
Bibliography:
Dressed to Kill. Snopes.com
Introduction
Coverpage
