(post copyright, 2011, Dawn Weber)
Very few friends will let you into their pants.
Unless you buy them a drink first.
Lighten up, Frances. You too, Esther. Don't start writing in nasty comments about my foul mouth again. I'm saying my buddy Robin Spanxed me...all the way from Cleveland.
And I loved it.
Yep. I had quite a dilemma last week: I was up for the Humor (under 50,000 circulation) award at the National Society of Newspaper Columnists Conference in Detroit Saturday evening. I was also going on vacation the five days before this event - arguably one of the biggest nights of my life. So I needed to continue to fit into this dress, which is - amazingly enough for me - not from Walmart:
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| Yeah - it's all shits and giggles, rainbows and unicorns the day before vacation, when the dress still fits. |
1. Eat, drink and be merry or
2. Fit into expensive, non-Walmart dress
Have you met me?
Yeah. I was merry.
Then I was worried.
What if I waddled to the podium? What if I popped a zipper on the way up? What if I burst forth from the dress like a stuffed sausage, and everyone saw my goodies?
I took my concerns to the experts - the girls on Facebook. My friend Robin, author of this hilarious blog, didn't let me down. She reminded me of Spanx.
You've heard of Spanx. Sounds modern, sounds sassy. Right?
It's a girdle. It may look a little different, but it's a girdle. As in your granny's girdle. As in sucks-in-the-gut-girdle.
As in crack-open-a-vacation-beer-because-you-have-a-girdle...girdle.
I never thought I'd wear a girdle. To do so, in my mind, admits defeat. Although people usually don't believe it, I work out like an O.C.D. idiot.
But obviously I had a situation - a vacation situation.
The good news for me? Robin owns Spanx.
Robin hates Spanx.
This worked to my benefit, because she gladly said she'd part with her Spanx and send it to me via Priority Mail so I'd have it in time for Saturday night.
People: A friend who loans you her intimate apparel? Who rushes said skivvies through the U.S. Postal System so you have it in time for the weekend? Keep this person close to your big belly heart. Forever.
Yes, a solution was on its way. Witness the following Facebook transaction:
The package arrived on time, but I was still kind of frightened, so I didn't open it until I was getting ready for the awards dinner. I pulled a tiny sliver of fabric from the envelope. Surely, Robin was punkin' me. It was the size and width of a snake.
I am the size and width of a heifer middle-aged mother-of-two. Who may or may not have some food issues. Who - as we discussed earlier - sometimes gets merry.
Obviously, I would need some assistance.
"Uh, honey?," I called to the husband. "Can you help me with this thing?"
"What thing?" he said. "I don't see anything."
"This...here," I said, holding up the tube-snake of fabric.
"What is that? A sock?" he asked.
"No...it's Spanx. It's a girdle. It goes over my legs and torso," I said.
It took him a while to stop laughing. But eventually, we got to work. We sweated. We wrestled. We pulled. We rested. Don't be pervy! And then we sweated, wrestled and pulled some more. You perve.
Finally, we had success, and the thing was painted on my body. I looked at myself in the mirror. Gone were my hips, my twice-pregnant belly, my infernal thighs. Gone was most of my womanhood.
I had the shape of a 13-year-old boy. With boobs.
In other words, I fit today's beauty standard. Perfectly.
It was - sadly - awesome.
Thanks to the girdle, we were running late, so I pulled on my dress and we rushed out the door.
Walking in Spanx is like continual resistance training. It's like 39,000 rubber bands, wrapped stubbornly, and somewhat painfully, around your body.
It's like the slow, methodical strangulation of a boa constrictor.
But I'll tell you what - it worked. Despite my week of vacation partaking, I looked OK in the little black dress. And the butterflies in my stomach? Gone. Smothered and smashed, no doubt, by the boa constrictor Spanx.
Just as I predicted, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists awarded me and Robin's Spanx third place. Not bad at all - this-here girdled-gal has only written humor for two years.
I may have placed third, but I felt like a Grand Champion. Because walking - not waddling - to the stage to get my award, I did not pop a zipper. I did not burst forth from the dress like a stuffed sausage.
And no one - not even one person - saw my goodies.
That, my friends, is what I call a raging success.
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| I'd like to Spanx the Academy... |
