At the moment, I am wearing a pair of stretchy black stirrup pants. One of the elastic bands under my foot has just snapped and now flaps behind the heel of my shoe. There’s a hole the size of a quarter in the crotch, making it impossible for me to sit Indian style on any given floor (like you really believed this middle-aged, flexibility-of-steel mommy could sit in such a way?).
My shirt is a circa 1989 “covers all faults”-length model, which means it drapes past my “wide load” rear end like a maternity top. My earrings look like baubles that hang from a tacky chandelier (like the one in my mother-in-law’s dining room). My shoes are well-worn, white canvas K-Mart “blue light” specials. They’re comfortable without socks, especially if you count the orthopedic insoles, which, unfortunately, are starting to smell like napalm.
This is my favorite outfit. Sadly, it is also my best one.
I wasn’t always this pitiful. At one point in my young life, I wore Calvin Klein jeans and Pendleton wool suits. That was before I had children, who now bolster my self-image with comments like, “Mom! You’re NOT wearing THAT, are you?” (This is when I threaten to drive them to school and force them to be seen by their friends with “Mommy Rear-est.”)
It’s not that I have no pride left. I just truly hate shopping for my own clothes since I am no longer a size 8, thanks to midlife and my three ungrateful 10-lbs.-at-birth-each babies.
I imagine that behind each and every two-way dressing room mirror there exists a pervert whose weird fetish in life is to ogle the jellyrolls of stretch-marked flab being squeezed into a pair of jeans marked “size 18” when they’re really a size 2. Clothing designers claim that they mark clothes this way to make the shopper feel better about her size. I’ll feel better when they start designing stylish clothes for real women and not just for transvestites and Ozzy Osbourne’s family.
And another thing: Just who is this sadist hired by department stores to install that harsh lighting, making every woman look like a cross between Casper the Friendly Ghost and Tammy Faye Bakker on an “Even Jesus Can’t Help Me Now” day? Seriously, I do not want to look into a halogen lighted mirror and be that up close and personal with every mascara-smeared teabag that has come to die under my eyes!
And why do these same stores insist on putting Ally McBeal look-alikes in the Plus Size Ladies department? If I hear one more scrawny, “I had celery and water for lunch and I’m so full!” anorexic neophyte cluck her tongue at me disapprovingly as I jam my jodhpur-shaped hips into a cocktail dress – all the while reassuring me that she’s sure I’m beautiful on the inside – I’m gonna kick her bony behind from here to McDonald’s and stuff a Big Mac down her throat.
Can we talk…panties? I swear, the only thing left on the shelves today looks like dental floss for your rear end. For the fashion-impaired, “hopelessly out of sync” moms like me, I’m talking about thongs. Let me ask you: As women, haven’t we paid enough dues in life by digging that darn piece of fabric OUT of our cracks since we were six years old? How much comfort are we expected to sacrifice for panty lines? Puh-lease. I’d rather have underwear made from burlap flour sacks. At least they would hide my grapefruit-dimpled cellulite cheeks instead of accentuating them. I’m certain they’d be much more comfortable than kite string up my you-know-where. Give me my “granny panties” any old day – the ones with the waistband that fits snugly under my armpits.
My only sanity-saving grace is that I know my husband loves me for who I am and not for what I wear. After all, his outfits look like Goodwill rejects. Misery loves company.