The Great Swaddling Debacle

Virginia is depressed. It seems apparent to her that the years and money she put into fashion-design school and starting her own line would soon be wasted unless Christians came to their senses and borderline psychos lost more of theirs.
After graduating in the top of her class at from the Raymondo Dior School of Fashion in Topeka, Kansas, Virginia took the inheritance her grandmother had left her, borrowed some more money from her parents, and took her dreams and designs to Kansas City to break into the big time fashion world. She prayed about her fashion future a lot and felt with money and God behind her, success would be in front of her.
Virginia’s business plan included the knowledge that about 90 percent of Americans were Christians, and Satan was spreading a lot of mental illness around to try and destroy them. Vowing to use her design gifts for a higher purpose, Virginia prayed some more and was rewarded with a divine inspiration: swaddling clothes. A voice came to her in the night and said, “Virginia, make some swaddling clothes.”
When Virginia arrived in Kansas City, she rented a small studio and set about creating a line of swaddling clothes she felt sure the country would embrace. Of course, she began with baby clothes because swaddling babies was a biblical tradition; what better endorsement could swaddling clothes have than Jesus himself? Virginia worked day and night sketching her visions of modern swaddles; she even produced styles such as punk, hip-hop, redneck and neo-Arabic. However, Virginia didn’t limit herself to designing baby swaddles, she decided to bring swaddling clothes into haute couture. Gold lame, silk, velvet, linen, seersucker and cheap polyester were but a few of the materials she stitched and sewed and puckered and hemmed in an effort to create new, young, hip, old-testament fashion for a modern world.
Since the word swaddling also means, “to restrict,” Virginia, in order to broaden her chances at financial success, started a line of institutional swaddles she felt would replace straightjackets. The rise in Satan-caused mental illness had increased the demand for restrictive garments for lunatics, and Virginia felt being embraced by a terrycloth swaddle would have a more calming effect on the insane and make it easier for them to find Jesus.
After months of preparation, Virginia opened a retail store in the Big Corn Shopping Mall and hired a sales manager named Sammy Dandy to handle the institutional part of the business. She named her store “Swaddles” and took out ads in the Kansas City Star to promote the grand opening.
That was three months ago. Since that time, the inventory at Swaddles has only diminished by two baby-swaddling outfits and one swaddling chemise (which was sold to an S&M transvestite). The institutional line fared worse. On his first, and last, sales call, as Sammy Dandy was demonstrating the terry-cloth, lunatic swaddle, he was viciously attacked by a schizophrenic patient named Mr. Cheese, and had his ear bitten off. Mr. Cheese thought Sammy was Satan.
So, Virginia is depressed. She knows she is going to have to close her store and pack her dreams, but she also knows there is hope. She’s been praying a lot, and the other night, the same voice came to her and said, “Swimming suits for dogs.”