Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine: Revealed!

As some of you know (but most of you don't), I occasionally indulge in fiction. Well, here's a smattering of something that's been needing to come out of me for quite some time... The emergence of my character, Garby 'Tretch Gaberdine, of whom I've been muttering for the past -- what? -- 12 months or so... I hope those of you who've had to endure my utterances will appreciate the solidity of her character as depicted herein.


Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine: Revealed!

Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine is not what you’d call a popular girl. At 13, with an overbite that makes beavers jealous -- coupled with an inexplicable series of skin allergies to any fabric known to humankind as “natural” -- Garby’s kamra could hardly be described as anything desirable, much less optimal. Nevertheless, Garby must attend public school, along with the entirety of the upper-middle class, bourgeois progeny that currently exists amidst the Las Vegas populace. (Her mother is a Vegas showgirl, and her father, a successful partner at a law firm -- also Vegas-based.)

She can’t wear Mark Jacobs. She can’t even wear GAP. No, the plight of our heroine, the anti-“anygirl,” is that of outcast. She’s the outcast who has to report to homeroom every morning donning nothing less than double-knit polyester -- or “stretch gaberdine," for short.

It’s not easy to find stretch gaberdine these days. Especially in these days’ styles…

Coupled with her physical issues is Garby’s saddening speech impediment. She’s unable to pronounce either the letter “D” or the letter “S.” No other two letters of the alphabet could have proven more fatal to the girl, whose birth name is “Darby Garby.” (That’s right, “Darby Garby.”) But as our heroine, who mis-pronounces her “D’s” says it, this comes across as "Garby Garby.”

Let me make this easier for you. Picture, if you will, an ugly prepubescent with an overbite that would make beavers jealous, sitting in a schoolyard, wearing nothing but ‘70s polyester (it's the only form that's reliably double-knit), and being approached by the “popular” girls, only to be asked the following:

“So, like, who are you?”

“(G)arby.”

“Garby?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that your first name, or your last?”

“Firt.”

“You mean, your firsssst?”

“Yeah, my firrrrt.”

“Well, then, what’s your last name?”

“Garby.”

“GARBY?”

“Yeah.”

“Your name is Garby GARBY?!?”

“No, no – my name’(t) (G)ARBY Garby.”

“That’s what I said! ‘Garby GARBY?!?’”

“No – no – “

(At this point I hope you’re getting the picture.)

It isn’t long thereafter before anyone at school who asks the poor girl her name runs into this exact sort of frustration. And so, one sunny September afternoon on the playground not that much later than when the previous conversation occurred, the same “popular” girl approached our heroine and pronounced:

“Y’know what? I don’t care what your name is. I’m gonna call you GARBY STRETCH GABERDINE, ‘cuz all you wear is poly-es-ter!”

(To which there were numerous giggles from the gaggle of girls who followed this popular one…)

Our heroine was caught slightly off-guard. She asked, “Huh?”

“You heard me. From now on, your name will be GARBY STRETCH GABERDINE. 'Cuz all you wear is stretch gaberdine!”

“’Garby ‘Tretch Gaberdine?’”

“No, SSSSSS-tretch. SSSSSS-tretch Gaberdine!”

“’T-t-t-‘Tretch?’”

(To which, as you might expect, there arose utter hysteria amidst the gaggle of schoolgirls.)

“That’s right,” their leader concurred, albeit in not a very polite fashion. “’Tretch Gaberdine.’ I swear, can’t you even say, ‘S?’”

But at that point our heroine’s fate had been sealed...


More later... If you can stomach it...