blikinigate: mission aborted

The search for the gold bikini has turned into Mission Impossible.

Without Tom Cruise.

Blinkinigate is proving the most difficult thing to track down this year. More difficult than changing my banking details with Multichoice, more difficult (I imagine) than a half-price holiday package to Beirut, more difficult than finishing off this year’s last magazine, more difficult than trying to focus primarily on work and not crazy monkey sex, and more difficult than getting out of bed after a Jaegerbinge.

Blinkinigate would prove testing for James Bond himself.

My mission has so far comprised fruitless phonecalls and wondering whether blinkini exists at all.

It all started one casual afternoon. God knows I wasn’t looking for a time-consuming bikini mission. Leafing through the November issue of Elle (the one with La Lohan on the cover), my eyes, much like when an ostrich first sees something metallic twinkle in the sun, stopped, catatonic on page 54.

The pure gold, ruched-in-the-right-places string-perfection was what I’ve been searching for in beachware my whole life.
Like jeans, it can take a woman a lifetime to find the perfect bikini.

I phoned Telkom directory services. The bikini label is JBS, however, astutely mind you, I ignored the stockist Capetonian number at the back of the magazine. Bypass the Western Cape and ask for a store in which it is stocked in the greater Johannesburg metropolitan area. Telkom thought I’d been smoking my socks, and had no number listed under JBS.
Fine.
Blikinigate was in full swing now.
I phoned the fashion editor at Elle to double check on Joburg numbers.
Nothing.
Phoned the Cape Town store.
They gave me an agent number.
I phoned her. Left three messages.
The more I phoned, the more I felt closer to my gold bikini. And the more I felt like a bikini stalker. Irrationality was clouding my questionably-logical brain.
She phoned me back, eventually, and gave me two stockists’ numbers. One in Eastgate, one at Sandton City.
Eastgate also thought I’d been smoking my socks.
Sandton City sounded promising: she had one size too big. Not to worry, I’d deal. Stuff the bra area with beach sand if need be.
They had two left. I ordered it, told her to hold onto it with her life; I’d be over after to work to collect the holy gold bikinigrail.

Heavy Lebanese accent: (this falls in well with Mission Blinkinigate, not?)
“You said you wonn’ed the gawld one?
Correct. Please take it off the hanger and keep it for me right now.
“Eet’s ok. I will do that.”
Awesome. Ta.
“You said you wonn’ed the one piece?”
No. The bikini. The JBS gold bikini as advertised in the November Elle on page 54.
“Oh. Bad nyoos. We only got the one piece.”
No bikinis? [crestfallen]
“No.”

Fuck.

Blinkinigate has come to a crashing halt. Where to turn? I stared at the photo in the magazine for about ten minutes. If I convince myself enough, I don’t like it that much. I mean, it’s only a beautiful colour, design and sports the perfect amount of shiney shimmer. Last season’s bikini is only marginally less spectacular after all, and I managed just fine with that.

Fuck it. Maybe a Woolies bikini will be cheaper anyway.

Besides, more pressing matters are at hand! My interview on SAfm today, for instance.