Hello, my name is Johanna, and I'm a high-neckline-aholic

First, there was this.

Followed by this.

Then this.

And this.

Oh, and then there was this.

And now, after what is embarrassingly the eleventh like-cut addition to my wardrobe in less than one calendar year, we have this:


And from ze back:

Two months ago, Hot Redhead Lawyer mentioned in passing that she'd seen a dress at Club Monaco that immediately made her think of me.

"Black, knee-length, shoulder baring, funnel-neck -- it was 'you' right down to the modest little keyhole."

A few weeks after she first came upon it, the two of us found ourselves in the Georgetown store on a post-brunch shopping excursion. Right away, before HRL could confirm it was in fact the same dress, I recognized it, wanted it, looked at the price-tag (then $179.99), hemmed, mentally shuffled through my inventory of LBWD*, hawed, and finally returned the hanger to its resting place.

"How come?" my painfully chic friend asked when I answered "no" to her, "Are you trying it on?"

"I just can't justify it right now," I replied. "Anyway, it's wool -- what is it outside, 88 degrees? I couldn't even begin to think about knowing how to wear Fall fabrics right now," I said with such matter-of-fact-edness it was clear I didn't believe a word of what I'd just said.

With my decision semi-firmly made, we made our way past the security guard and out the double glass doors, but not before I could shoot my dress a melodramatic, palms-against-the-prison-glass "maybe one day..." look over my right shoulder.

Since then, I've thought about her on occasion (you might have noticed items tend to shift from the neuter to the feminine once a bond is formed), most notably the time I saw her on another, much squatter woman who happened to be in wedged peep-toes of all unfortunate footwear options and whose fleshy, untoned shoulders really shouldn't have "gone there," to use a euphemistic colloquialism.

In the moment, I couldn't decide which was more tragic, that this woman had her and I didn't or the fact that her seams were stretched to the near-burst point, her hemline was inadvertently raised by the girth of this woman's mid-section and that her under-sleeves were clearly caked with deodorant.

Either way, it didn't matter. I still had too many blouses and dresses with similar necklines in the same color -- there was no need to add to the collection another sister, especially one whose price-point was just high enough that it would affect that month's budget.

Fast-forward four weeks to yesterday afternoon.

Finally getting off my duff after watching four straight hours of "True Life" episodes I'd already seen, I sojourned over to the Pentagon City Nordstrom to return two didn't-fit items and to snap up my sister-in-law a _______ from the _______ department for Christmas. A half hour later, I somehow wandered my way into a Club Monaco fitting room with my want-it-but-still-didn't-need-it dress.

Excuse me, my want-it-but-still-didn't-need-it, on-sale dress.

Am I right, or am I right that when something you know you don't need drops in price from $179.99 to $79.99 (then add an additional 15%-off savings from an in-store coupon) it has a tendency to creep into the maybe-I-actually-do-need-it category?

After all, once I have Mr. Lee raise the hem an inch and a half, it'll be the perfect post-work holiday party dress**, and at last count, I only had five or six of those to go around...

*LBWD = little black work dress

**to be worn with a cropped swing jacket, of course, between 9 and 6