Postcards from the Floor of the Lane Bryant Dressing Room

Excuse #99 for not keeping up with this blog:  I’ve been writhing on the dressing room floor trying to get my Spanx off.

For months.

I have a big event coming up--one that requires a pressed gown and proper undergarments.  It was recommended to me that I invest in a “shaper” to smooth things out. 

I have two statements about “Shapers”:

1.    They are for skinny people who need to hide a cheeseburger when it becomes visible to the outside world while on its way down their small intestine…like a python digesting a rat.   

2.    Shapers on fat people are actually “Shape SHIFTERS” that manipulate and decide all by themselves on a new shape which may be worse than the shape you started with.

Statement 2, of course, applies to me.  I can pack a cheeseburger where you’ll never see it again.

I may have been dreaming when I tried on the stretchy garment, meant for an 11 ½ inch glamour doll, that all my years of being unkind to my figure would magically disappear, Cinderella-like, just for one night. 

My Fairy Godmother must be off “bippity-booing” somewhere else.

Scarlett O’Hara’s Mammie and the suction power of a hundred Dysons couldn’t force me into the shape I imagined.  Ten thousand Chinese Olympic opening ceremony acrobats, all linked together shouting “Pull!” (in Chinese, of course) would, at best, would move things north making me into a double-scoop ice cream cone.

Once I had the girdle-like fabric in place, what happened was the extra flesh, under the pressure of the elastic/spandex/woven-titanium was pushed together, forcing electrons to enter the wrong orbits.  Heat rose from the waistband like subway steam. 

A new shape was created… rock solid, immobile, Manatee-like.  John Travolta made a better looking woman than the one in my dressing room mirror. I tried the dress on over the shape-shifter’s decision for my body type, but I couldn’t get it past the gigantic”Boob-waist-hip” obstacle. 

“I want my old body back,” I wailed inside my head.  I pity the person who might have been electronically monitoring me.  She’s blind now.

I heard a jubilant person in the next room say how great her dress fit now.

Skinny Bitch.
 

I am Marsupial

If any of you missed me, I have been busy dieting for the past few months.  I do nothing but think about food and invent ways to eat satisfying amounts of vegetables without needing a slow drip of “Beano”.

The first 3 days of any diet should include an exile from your family.  The “Carb Detox” process involves obscenities, self-mutilation and thrashing.  It also involves noise.  While at work, my stomach growled like an in-sink-erator.  It was its own vicious, moaning entity that echoed and bounced off all surfaces of the room.  People raised their heads and looked around like deer who had just heard a twig snap in the wood. 

Following the dark, first days, however, I fell into step.  What rose from the ashes and Kleenexes, wet with the tears I shed mourning my beloved pizza, was a surprising and maddening high self-esteem.  This lasted approximately 2 months until recently--“The Day I became a Marsupial.”

My previously “pillowy” lower abdomen, rather suddenly, has become an empty sack, held up on both sides like a hammock.  Any skin-elasticity I previously owned has left the building.  To sooth myself, I’ve been thinking up ways I can either disguise or USE this pouch for the greater good.  Sheltering baby animals, “kangaroo-like” was out of the question without a mutual agreement regarding the use of claws and “nature calls.” 

I could donate the extra skin and fat cells to the needy.  The idea of being a “Flesh Farmer” amused me.

I can also use this pouch as a musical instrument, as became evident while playing a rousing game of “Guestures” which required me to jump.  The flap hit the top of my thighs and made a “THWACK” sound.  Again, the other players, like my co-workers, became a deer herd.  If they’d had them, their white tails would have become erect, alerted to a mysterious, nay, alien noise.

“What the HELL was that?” my husband, Fred, asked.

Dieting can also be scary.  I went to the clinic last week, certain I had tumors.  I pointed to either side of my torso and said, “What are these?” 

“Hip Bones,”

Oh.

But it hasn’t been all bad.  Finding old clothes in my closet that fit now is kind of a high, even though I would never wear them outside of my home.  47-year-old women in leopard print anything is just sad.  I’m not quite into my 80’s androgynous wardrobe yet, but when I get there, I’ll be sure to post a picture. 

I can just imagine the caption.

“Michael Jackson’s white sister, wearing his red leather jacket and glove, finds place for “Bubbles” the monkey inside her own flesh pouch.”

Pink Erasers Will Outlast us Like Pet Parrots

Few things burn me up like the yearly “Back-to-School” plea for classroom supplies-- especially those my kids never use.  Kleenex, for instance—everyone knows tissues are for the teachers.  Kids don’t use tissues—they use the palm of their hand to wipe their noses up, carrying the snot up into their hair.

Or they just let the mucus hang like little “nose-cicles.”

This year, as I read through my daughter’s school supply list, I found the one thing I objected to most:  a pink eraser.  Stop the shopping cart.  Folders and markers, I get, but a PINK ERASER? 

“I’m not buying you a pink eraser.”

“Why?”

“Because I know we still have yours from last year.  The only reason anyone needs a new one is if they lost the one they got the year before.” 

"MOM!"

“In fact,” I went on, “I’m pretty sure I can find the pink eraser I had when I was a kid and it’s no smaller than it was in 1972.” 

After not that much hunting, it materialized in our junk drawer, with my full name and that of my 2^nd grade teacher’s written on the bottom with ball-point ink.  Evidently, my mother didn't see a reason to throw it out either.  I'm thinking of hosting a “World’s Oldest Pink Eraser” contest because I think I can win with the one in my Dad’s old desk from 1945.

Just a thought.

“Here it is!!” I scream triumphantly, to my daughter’s chagrin, “Take that to school with you--it’s perfectly good!”

“I’ll just use the eraser at the end of the pencils,” she said, disgusted.

“And THAT is why the big pink ones never wear out!” I trumpeted.

It was my “Ah-HA” moment.  Behold it.

A pink eraser will outlast us all.  Fossilized erasers will puzzle future archaeologists, who will scratch their heads and wonder why the odd-shaped vulcanized rubber, if a tool as they supposed, showed no sign of wear.  "Is it a body part?" they'll theorize, "or maybe animal droppings?"

In the store recently and saw a 5-pack of pink erasers.  You can imagine the rant I had upon this sighting.  I see this as a blatent effort on the part of the manufacturer to unload inventory on frenzied, oblivious parents.

But they were an outstanding deal.



 

 

Men in Wet Shorts

You can get into big trouble trying to diagnose your own ailments on the computer.  As tempting as it is, there is no substitute for a medical degree, a cold stethoscope and a scale that adds 10 lbs.  However, one night recently, I turned to the dark-side and read up on the residual pain from my gall bladder surgery.  Of all the crazy things it could be, the one I settled in on was:  A plugged, spasming bile sphincter.

Oddly, this diagnosis soothed me and I went to sleep.

Later, the next day, I attended a water aerobics class for the first time in many months.  The two male lifeguards who were on duty that night I knew from years past.  One was a college kid; another man was nearly my age.  They asked how I was doing.

“Much better, but I had some complications after my surgery.”  I said.  I should have said, “Fine”, but I felt compelled to give more details.  It’s what old people do.

“Oh?  What kind of complications?” 

This was an unexpected question.  Men in wet shorts were curious about my health!  In my mind, I was waving my hands around like the Robot on “Lost in Space” repeating, “this does not compute.”   A combination of odd flattery and anxiety clouded my cerebral cortex.  I was standing in the water, they were both on deck.  This is what I actually said:

“I’m having a problem with my sphincter.”

To which both men said in unison:

“Whooooooahhh!”

Two male acquaintances are now under the mistaken impression I was complaining about my asshole.

“Oh, no, not that kind of sphincter…” I sputtered out, but it was way too late for any kind of recovery.  I have never spoken the word “sphincter” before in my ENTIRE life.  And now, it was clear I couldn’t stop saying it. 

“I wasn’t talking about “THAT” sphincter.”  I called to them as they coiled up the swim lanes, their eyes open wide, eyebrows raised.  “I was talking about a spasming sphincter.”

“Whooooooahh!!”

“You do realize you have more than one sphincter, right?”  I called to them, this time plowing through the water to get closer to them.   By the time I got near them again, class had started, and the lifeguard shift changed…

…and so had my social life at the Y.

Huey Lewis and 50 Shades of Grey

Last night we attended a “Huey Lewis and the News” concert.  Let’s just get this out there—if Huey Lewis were interested in fat women with transient chin hairs and hooves, my husband, Fred, might have to release me from my marital vows for one night.  Huey’s still got it: the fantastic voice, the hair, the muscles and the jeans-friendly body.

At the entrance to the event was, in contrast to paragraph 1, my first real glimpse of myself as an old woman.  This occurred when we comingled with our fellow concert-goers-- the cast of “Cocoon”—in line at the door.

“Do we look as old as they do?”  I whispered to Fred.  He smiled and straightened his shoulders.

We stood for a short time to have our tickets scanned, not by a tough bouncer-type man searching for pot or explosive devices, but by an elderly woman they lured from her regular job of rewriting voter names in “old-lady” cursive at the voting poles.

“Things sure have changed a lot since my last pop concert,” I reported to Fred.  My last rock concert was in 1983, in Detroit, MI, and the ticket collector searched my purse and padded me down.

In my seat, I lost myself again, youth recaptured, as Huey entered the stage to the heartbeat at the beginning of “Heart of Rock ‘n Roll.”  With the lights out in the darkened theatre, it was a magical night.  We sang, we hooted, we enjoyed ourselves at the expense of our mortified 12 year-old daughter who glared at me like I’d grown a 3^rd eye every time I turned to her with my arms waving.

Then they played “I Want a New Drug” and flashed the spotlights on the audience.  WHOA!!  50 shades of grey!!  I felt like I was standing in a cotton field.  We looked like the matinee audience of the very last “Peter, Paul and Mary” PBS-televised concert...or a retirement planning seminar.  The hairs on our heads shone like 500 silvery christmas bulbs.

And so it went.  Dark theatre-young again; Lights shining on the grey-fluffy dandelions …DOH!—old again.

Young.  Old. 

Young.  Old. 

It was maddening.

At some point half the audience rushed the stage and I was wondering what Huey was thinking.  There was something strange about a bunch of 50-80 year olds standing at your feet.  Was he cringing?  Was he glad he had all his hair?  Their gnarled hands stretched up to him like they were in a Charlton Heston blockbuster and Huey was God.

Maybe it was their time to go and they WERE reaching for God.

Ahh, but what a way to go.

Seven Facts to Blow Your Mind

A blogger friend of mine sent me a Kreative Blogger award.  The rules of acceptance say I must pay-it-forward and nominate 7 others and also write 7 facts about myself.

Opening the door into Heidi’s “Fact safe”…creeeeeaaakkkkk:

1.        I spent a night with Elvis Prestley.

O.k, O.k, I was with a stadium full of people in 1973 (I was 8) at one of his last white-jumpsuit shows.  I was not impressed and spent the entire concert with a scarf over my face (the flashbulbs were blinding) and my fingers in my ears. 

Thank you.  Thank you very much.

2.        A Hamster helped me get through my divorce in 1991.

On one, lonely, miserable night just before my divorce to my then husband was final, I felt especially lonely and uncertain about my decision.   At 4:30 in the morning, I made a list of the Ex’s good and bad points.  Concurrently, our 7-year old, half-dead hamster, Elmer, squeaked his wheel, so I decided to make a pro-con list about HIM and compare it that of the Ex (hey, it was late).  The chart proved that even a smelly rodent who did nothing but sleep and poop had more pros than my ex-husband.

I still have the chart.

3.       I am a morning person, but a night witch

I genuinely get up energetic and happy.  But something happens to me over the day, and by evening time I’ve become a bitter, hungry goblin.  Important self-preservation tip:  Don’t mess with me when I’m tired, or I'll turn in to the "Incredible Hulk."

4.        I would sing the National Anthem naked for a Hershey’s bar with peanut butter.

No. Really.  I hope to be able to aquire them without doing so, but if need be..."Ooooh, say can you see?"

5.        I buy water chestnuts whenever I see them, because I mentally block out the fact that I already bought them the previous week.

I’m certain this has a diagnosis.  I also admit to doing this during the Christmas season with evaporated milk.

6.        I’ve always wondered what it would be like to play the organ

This might have started when I was a child, during my “Fascination with The Addams Family” period. 

7.        I have a harmless, mole (read: beauty mark) on my chin that has been removed thrice-- but it keeps growing back.

Now THAT’s talent.

And the nominees are!  Cut and paste your award below and place in your blog, get it tattooed (I don't need to know):

1.  Sheri Saretsky of “My Life in a Fat Suit”—my soul-sister, who has a gift for relatable humor.

2.  Dawn Weber of “Lighten Up”- a sassy broad with a amazingly funny blog

3.  Mark Cowell of “Bagman and Butler Chronicles” -a heck of a photographer/writer with a couple of alter-egos to tend with.

4.  Jerry Zezima- King of the Puns—writes very clever, funny stuff.

5.  Don Mills is “The Crabby Old Fart”, as a crabby old fart in training--I am a huge fan.

6.  Joanne Lee “Nuts and Bolts of Life” writes humor, sentimental, even gardening tips.
7.  Stacey Hatton is “Nurse Mommy Laughs” clever Nurse-Mommy humor.

Equine Therapy: Heidi Gets a Pedicure

Approximately 3 times a year, I treat myself to a pedicure at a nail salon.  Approximately 3 times a year, the nail technicians at the nail salon run to the back room and to do “Rock, Paper, Scissors” to see who gets saddled with my hooves.

“I’m here for my “shoeing”,” I joked today to the Vietnamese girl who runs the place.  She doesn’t understand what I’ve said, but she knows my feet.  She announces something to the other employees in her native tongue-- something that sounds like:

“Who hasn’t done a horse footed woman, yet?”

I see their faces get longer and their eyes open wider and a younger girl is ushered to the front like a virgin about to be tossed in a volcano.

She says, “Go pick a color,” trembling.

It’s not my fault my feet are nasty…not entirely.  Heredity plays a factor--I got the thick heel skin compliments of my mother, and the petrified toenails from Dad.  I’m also a long way from my feet because I’m tall.  I also have a hard time seeing my feet without my glasses on.  I try to moisturize, but nothing penetrates a thousand layers of dead skin.

Today, the day before Mother’s Day, was the busiest I’ve ever seen place.  I thought about going home, but my feet are so bad, they’re starting to pick up carpet fibers.

As soon as my feet had soaked and were up on the bench to be worked on, I hear my pedicurist say two addition things in English:

Channel Lock Pliers and Goggles

This was not the soothing, spa experience I was going for.  The neophyte was not going to be cowed by my animal heels and was fiercely determined to be the “alpha.”  She clipped and sawed and planed like Norm Abrams on the New Yankee Workshop.  I sat there, smoke rising, toenails flying like B-Bs, like a 2x4 in shop class.

God.

The next step is optional, but I gave her a “thumbs up” and she took out her razor blade and wicked off my dead skin, forming the mini-blizzard of a snow globe turned upside-down and right-side up again.   All the other girls having pedicures turned to watch, and I’m pretty sure the lights went dim and a single, red light shone above me.  There was nowhere to look except down…in fascination. 

“You should leave a little of that on,” I said, trying to relieve anxiety, “for traction.”

All that embarrassment was worth it--my feet look human again, and my husband, Fred, won’t get all scratched up in bed anymore…

…at least by my feet.