Spanx You Very Much! (Winning: Part Two)

(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:

Yeah - it's all shits and giggles, rainbows and unicorns the day before vacation, when the dress still fits.

Obviously, I had two choices:
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:

Robin Daugherty Suttell

The Girdle is in transit. I repeat. The Girdle is in transit.

June 20 at 1:47pm ·  ·  · See Friendship

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  You and Kerbi Sexton like this.
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    Marcia Camino um...
    

    June 20 at 1:59pm · 
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    Dawn Weber You are so awesome! ! Now I can relax! *cracks open another Landshark*
    Srsly. You're awesome
    Xxoo
    

    June 20 at 2:46pm · 
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    Robin Daugherty Suttell I think Marcia is a bit concerned about the whole operation. :)
    

    June 20 at 2:53pm · 
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    Dawn Weber She is just jealous cuz she isn't borrowing your intimate apparel. Everybody wants to get in your pants. *knee slap*
    

    June 20 at 3:13pm · 
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    Marcia Camino If it's a girdle then of course I'm jealous!! You two have your secret language that sprinkles into your postings on occasion. I have to crack the code. I thought 'girdle' was code for something like a secret tech tool for a double agent or operative.
    

    June 20 at 3:42pm · 
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    Robin Daugherty Suttell No...we're really talking about Spanx this time. I'm apparently the official Spanx Higher Power lending library. Although I hate that thing so much, she can keep it if she wants.
    

    June 20 at 3:45pm ·  ·  1 person
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    Dawn Weber I'm super-thankful to borrow it, but from the looks of things, it'll be difficult to breathe. I think I can handle one night, but you're talking to a woman who regularly walks around with the top button of her pants undone for comfort.
    

    June 20 at 4:01pm ·  ·  2 people
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    Robin Daugherty Suttell Dude, I already told ya...the thigh zone is so tight that I put runs in it trying to put it on the only time I wore it.
    

    June 20 at 4:06pm ·  ·  1 person
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    Marcia Camino crack. me. up.
    

    June 20 at 7:35pm · 
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    Robin Daugherty Suttell I'm not kidding. Thing was so damn tight, I ripped it a bit trying to put it on. I shoulld have known better at that point and let the flab hang free.
    

    June 20 at 7:37pm · 
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    Dawn Weber OK. Now I'm frightened.
    

    June 20 at 7:57pm · 
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    Robin Daugherty Suttell Be afraid. Be very afraid. Let's just say I'm wearing a knit dress today, and even if that thing wasn't somewhere in the US Postal System, I wouldn't be wearing it.
    

    June 21 at 4:55pm ·  ·  1 person

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.

I'd like to Spanx the Academy...