‘The Price Was Right’

                                                           

By kiki

Memories came rushing at me the other day when I saw this picture and Connie wearing that black dress. Memories of how Connie came about buying that dress. The decade of the '60s was when we were still young, and New Year's Eves were a time for us to go out to a Nite Club to celebrate the old year and welcome the new one. So just about every year in that decade, as the end of the year was coming to a close, Connie and I would go out looking for a New Year's Eve. Dress for her.

Her price range was from $50.00 to $75.00. That amount of money would, in those years, buy a woman an adorable dress. So circa 1966, we went out looking for a dress for her, we hit most of the ladies' stores on Whittier Blvd in East Los Angeles, and we couldn't find anything Connie liked; we decided to go into one more store; if we didn't find anything she wanted we would call it a night. The last store that we walked into was Melody Dress Shop. We started looking at some dresses; I picked a nice-looking little sexy black dress with lots of lace from the rack and showed it to Connie "oh, it's pretty," she told me. So I told her to try it on without looking at the price. When she came out of the dressing room, I started slobbering; man, she looked hot and dangerous in that short tight black dress! "Babe, you look just great," I said to her "you like it?" "hell yes, I like it, and it looks great on you too" While she was in the dressing room changing her clothes, I thought, 'man, she is going to look hot on New Year's Eve. I was also thinking about the price, thinking it would cost us a pretty penny.

Connie came out of the dressing room and handed me the dress, I looked at the price tag, and I almost fainted; the price for that beautiful dress was $13.98. When I told Connie the price, she told me, "I am not going to wear a 13-dollar dress on New Year's Eve!" I knew I had to use my best bullshit to convince her to buy the dress; hell, I would buy her two dresses at that price! "Babe, I think they just mislabeled the dress because in no way is that a 13-dollar dress," take it, I told her, "but I am going to be self-conscious" "Babe, nobody is going to know how much you paid for that BEAUTIFUL dress" I was using "beautiful" as much as I could "but I will" she replied. Finally, I asked her, "do you like the dress?" "Well, it is pretty" "okay, we'll take it," I told her "okay, but you better not tell anybody how much we paid for it!" she said to me with a stern voice. On New Year's Eve, We went to the Comet Nite Club in Los Nietos, and she was turning heads as we danced!!

My brother-in-law and my late sister, Danny and Mary Ellen Garcia, Connie, and I at the Comet Nite Club

Now that the dress is just a distant memory, I am safe telling the story of Connie's beautiful $13. 98 dress.