I had been thinking about blogging on the slow slide from sassy to comfort.
Then my inbox delivered an ad for “figure improving technology.”
What the what?
It is not easy being a muffin-top grandma in a “figure improving technology” world.
Every year, my pants get more comfortable. There is a strong trend toward knit pants in my closet. Meanwhile, gravity keeps increasing its grip on pretty much every part of my body.
Gravity is persistent.
Rude, but persistent.
The Promise of Figure Improving Technology
I will admit I have been tempted by products that promise to turn my muffin top back into something resembling a recognizable shape without requiring sweat equity, surgery, or an optimistic relationship with sit-ups.
I am human.
Also, I like snacks.
Even in my younger days, I was tempted by girdles. That is what we called them back then. Girdles.
The sad part?
I was tempted before I even needed one.
I spent years with a perfectly decent figure thinking I did not have enough of one.
Now that I could use actual shaping, I am burned out on being shaped.
The Ad Copy That Tried to Lure Me In
The ad copy was very confident.
“Sophisticated Liquid Asset…”
Excuse me?
“Make your rounders rounder…”
That sounds like something a committee came up with after too much coffee and not enough shame.
And then came the kicker:
“Without any discomfort.”
I am circling that phrase with suspicion.
Somewhere in the world, there may be a comfortable body shaper. There may also be unicorns with excellent retirement plans.
But I have drunk that Kool-Aid before.
There are immutable truths involving gravity, mass, volume, genetics, and inertia.
It is probably a formula.
A terrible formula.
One with math and Lycra.
Why This Scene Made It Into a Book
I do not post a lot of excerpts in these essays, but I am making an exception this time.
Why?
Because this is one of those rare moments when I will admit that an almost-real experience made it into a book.
Also, why reinvent the wheel?
Or in this case, why rewrite the body-shaper scene when the body-shaper scene already exists?
Disclaimer: many parts of this scene are true.
I will leave you to guess which parts.
In The Spy Who Kissed Me, Stan, our heroine, is out on a date with her dog’s veterinarian, Mike, when she receives a double hit to her ego.
First, the floor show arrives.
Then the shapewear declares mutiny.
A Short Excerpt From The Spy Who Kissed Me
“I have this theory that there was only so much available bosom to be divided among the women of the world. Since I didn’t get my share, I’ve often wondered who did. The floor show answered that question.
Akasma, the climbing flower of Casablanca, got mine, plus that of a few dozen other girls.
These were not mere boobs attached to her chest. She had breasts. Gazooms. Hooters. Jugs, and every other nickname that man has given the female bosom. Akasma had the Tetons of Tetons, twin peaks of magnificence, that bobbed and undulated as she performed the ancient dance of her forebears with a sinuous grace and even more amazing flexibility.
She could have beat herself to death with her own flesh, but the only casualty this night was my ego.
If that weren’t bad enough, my “flexible and comfortable” body shaper decided it was time to contract to its original ten by three inch, pre-donning configuration. My lungs felt like they were being squeezed up out my nose. Everything else felt like it was getting squeezed out the bottom.
I needed air.
“Got to powder my nose, Mike,” I croaked.
With my elegant three-inch heels, it wasn’t easy to get my feet under me. Through the red haze forming in front of my eyes, my thighs were turning into pencils and my knees into mini-blimps as my shaper continued its drive toward my spine.
I figured I’d reach critical mass in about five.
At which point, my head and my feet would pop off.
The fact that I’d be left with a body a model would envy was small comfort.
I barely made it in the door, started clawing at inflexible elastic before the door swung shut. With the distant wail of Akasma’s music filtering in, I shimmied out of the shaper and threw it across the room, then leaned on the sink and drew in great, gulping breaths of bathroom-scented air and was grateful for it.”
The Comfort Question
So there are several questions I could ask.
Which parts were true?
Have you ever taken off a body shaper in a public restroom?
How many times have you believed a body shaper would be comfortable?
For how long was it actually comfortable?
Is there truly a comfortable one out there?
And if you found one, do you really need it?
Because I am thinking comfort, or lack thereof, is directly proportional to the size of the mass being shifted.
Let us face it. That stuff has to go somewhere.
Those things are not black holes.
More’s the pity.
Sass Still Counts
These days, I am much more interested in comfort than compression.
I still like sass.
I still like feeling cute.
I still admire a good outfit.
But I have reached the stage of life where “breathing freely” ranks high on my list of wardrobe goals.
Possibly number one.
So if something promises to improve my figure while causing no discomfort, I reserve the right to be skeptical.
If it wants to impress me, it can also promise pockets.