When I was a little girl, I was absolutely obsessed with The Little Mermaid. I’ve totally lost count of how many times I watched that film (my mother, on the other hand, could probably tell you exactly!) and I had a ton of Little Mermaid toys and accessories.
But my absolute ambition was to become a mermaid myself, and one day I saw a TV news report about a woman who was dressing up with a tail on her bottom half and presumably earning good money by attending kids’ parties dressed as Ariel. I was besotted with her and began to nag my mom about getting me an outfit like that.