Life of the party

"Mom... do you have anything for me to wear?" Candace asked her mother sheepishly, as though she were a child again.

"No, sweetie," her mother said lowly, "I already told you everything's in the laundry."

"But... but I'm naked," Candace looked down on the floor, "how long until the laundry's done?"

"Sweetie, don't worry about all that," her mother gave her a big bear hug, the first time in hours her body felt any kind of clothing. "Come on, get your bags and get dressed, everyone's been waiting for you."

"My- my bags..." Candace had to come up with something, and fast! Just before she could, however, her father snuck up behind her and said "Candace, I looked on the porch and didn't see your bags. What's going on?"

"Oh yeah, they got delayed at the airport and will be here tomorrow," Candace sheepishly came up with the most plausible-sounding lie she could.

"Is that so?" Janice smirked skeptically at her daughter, "Well, it's not like Gamma to just lose bags like that. I guess you just got unlucky."

"You can say that again!" Candace perked up.

"Well, let's go downstairs and meet everyone again. I think you owe them a story or two," Gerald softly grabbed his daughter's left hand and guided her down the stairs into the waiting crowd. Tired and with one hand taken, Candace gave up on covering herself for the night.

"Hiya, Candace," her cousin Mary met her at the bottom of the stairs, "are you alright? Why are you naked? What happened to your bags?"

"Umm, yes, it's a very long story," the beleaguered buxom belle sighed, "let me get a snack or two and I'll explain the whole story to you." As she brushed past all of the sweaters on the way to the snack table, her skin puckered up at the wool that was touching her only so slightly. Eventually, she got to the snack table and took a small plastic plate, filling it with a couple of small skewered hors-d'oeuvres that she didn't feel like eating. She then grabbed a small square napkin and placed it under the plate, holding both with her left hand as she felt all eyes on her nude backside.

"Okay," she nervously turned around to face her audience while staying in front of the snack table, "this is going to be a long story. It all began at Logan; I was in the bathroom just before the flight, and I tried to change from my jeans to my sweatpants. Well, it turns out that not only did I not have any sweatpants in my backpack, but someone must have taken my jeans, maybe as a devious lick or some other TikTok stunt."

"Looks like they took a lot more than your jeans!" Candace's fat and hair-graying uncle Frank shouted out flippantly.

"Shut it, Frank!" Janice chided her brother-in-law while staring daggers into him.

"Yes, yes, very funny," Candace said with as much amusement as someone getting a root canal. "Then, I got onto the plane in just my T-shirt and panties. I guess I forgot my shoes somewhere, I don't know," Candace didn't feel like telling the story about her coat. "I was stuck in the middle seat, and fell asleep. When I woke up, my panties got caught in the armrest and ripped off, so I had to go to the bathroom to get myself sorted."

Candace noticed the crowd just staring at her in disbelief. Some were nodding sympathetically, others were just rolling their eyes in boredom. The sensation of her shame overpowered that of the carpet on the soles of her feet, the warm air on her body, or the plate and napkin still held perfectly flat by her left hand. The food on the plate, of course, remained uneaten for the time being.

"So, I wanted to make a skirt, so I took my shirt off to make a skirt and used toilet paper to make a shirt."

"Wait," one of the more skeptical family members interjected, "so you took off your shirt to make a skirt? And then you used toilet paper to make a new shirt?"

"Mhm," Candace unthinkingly responded.

"Why didn't you just use your shirt as a shirt and use the TP to make a new set of underwear?"

Candace was stunned at this. That was so obvious, but it had eluded her on the plane. Maybe she would still have her shirt, and a whole lot of other stuff, if she had done that instead. Not only was she kicking herself for this egregious lapse of judgment contributing to her current predicament, but she didn't even know how to explain it to the family.