Orange County Register

Some of you may recall my story about wearing a dress I loved but nearly strangled me. Readers knocked some sense into me and I gave up on trying to fit into it again. Fortunately, I have smaller friends who I could give it to. While it was too big for Heather, it’s a keeper for Jess.

Here’s what Jess said about her new dress:

Jess Block wears the infamous dress with a long gray cardigan and platform shoes. / Candice Shih

“I like your dress!” were the first words out of the server’s mouth upon my arrival to a delicious lunch at Marche Moderne with my good friend Candice Shih.

The beautiful Ellen Tracy dress, which had tormented Candice, has now become a source of knee-jerk compliments.

And why not? The dress looks hot! Everything falls at the right place.

The waist cinches exactly at my natural waist - a definite plus according to all the pointers I have studied from Candice’s appearance with Clinton Kelly and his TLC show “What Not to Wear.”

The dress even had pockets that we never knew existed! (Candice: “It’s true. I feel like an idiot.”)

As it turns out this dress is the best thing ever, just not for the person it was originally intended for since it had been slowly cinching her to death at the waist.

What life lesson can I extract from this experience? Is it possible for something to be perfect, just not for its original intended purpose?

It makes me value my friendship because otherwise we wouldn’t be enjoying long lunches, days off, shopping and clothes-sharing, like this dress.

Maybe sometimes things work out better when they are a happy accident after all, just like the dress.

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