Lisa Scottoline - Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog - The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman

Sorry.

I am referring, of course, to Spanx.

If you don’t know what Spanx are, I have one word for you:

Girdles.

I got introduced to Spanx by accident, when I bought a black-patterned pair, thinking they were tights. I got my size, which is B.

For Beautiful.

I took them home and put them on, which was like slipping into a tourniquet. Then I realized they weren’t tights, they were just Tight, and I checked the box, which read Tight-End Tights.

Huh?

I actually managed to squeeze myself into them, then I put on a knit dress, examined myself in the mirror, and hated what I saw. From the front, I looked like a Tootsie Roll with legs. From the back, instead of having buttocks, I had buttock.

In other words, my lower body had been transformed into a cylinder. I no longer had hips where hips are supposed to be, or saddlebags where God intended. I was the cardboard in the roll of toilet paper.

And another detail. I couldn’t breathe.

Also the elastic waistband was giving me a do-it-yourself hysterectomy.

I didn’t understand the product, so I went instantly to the website, which explained that these were no ordinary tights but were “slimming apparel.” This, under the bright pink banner that read, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts!”

Really?

The website claimed that “these innovative undergarments eliminate VBL (visible bra lines) and VPL (visible panty lines).”

Well.

Would this be a good time to say that I’m in favor of VBL and VPL? Especially VPL. In fact, I want my P as V as possible.

You know why?

Because I wear P.

I don’t know what kind of signal we’re sending if we want our butts to suggest otherwise. Bottom line, I’m not the kind of girl who goes without P. In other words, I’m a Good Girl (GG). And GGs wear P.

Same goes for B.

I admit, I get a little lazy, especially at home or in the emergency room, as you will learn later. I don’t always bother with B all the time. But if I’m in public and not wearing a down coat, I wear B. And I also want my B to be V.

You know why?

I want extra credit.

If I went to the trouble to put on a B, I want to be recognized for it. Here’s an analogy; I’m not the kind of person who makes charitable donations anonymously. If I give away money, I want a plaque or maybe a stadium named after me, so everybody knows that I’m nice, in addition to being good. (N and G). In fact, that makes me a N and GG.

But back to P and B.

I went back to the mirror and noticed something else-that the fat that properly belonged on my hips, having taken up residence there at age 40, was now homeless and being relocated upward by my tights, leaving a roll at my waist which could pass for a flotation device.

But have no fear. I checked the website, and Spanx has the solution: “slimming camis.” That is, camisoles that look like Ace bandages, which presumably pick up the fat roll at the waist and squeeze it upward, so that, having nowhere else to go, it pops out on top, as breasts.

Ta-da!

Or rather, ta-tas!

This is interesting, for physics. Natural law says that matter cannot be created or destroyed, but that was pre-Spanx. With these babies, you could destroy the matter at your waistline and increase it at your bustline, merely by turning your body into a half-squeezed tube of toothpaste.

And of course, you’ll need a new bra to catch all your homeless fat, so the website sells “the Bra-llelujah!” It even states, “So, say goodbye to BBS (Bad Bra Syndrome)!”

Thank God. I hate it when my B is B.

I looked at the other articles of slimming apparel, and there were even tights for pregnant women, which was great. I wouldn’t want my baby to be born with VIL (Visible Infant Lines).

And there were Power Panties, which made me smile.

If women had power, we wouldn’t need Spanx.

I was driving down the street the other day when I saw a sign on an empty storefront that read, FISH PEDICURES COMING SOON!

It was the kind of sign that got me thinking. Do fish need pedicures? You’d think they would do without, in this economy.

Unless they were goldfish.

I went home and plugged “fish pedicures” into Google, and I learned that this is a new kind of pedicure for women, whereby you plunge your feet into a tank of water and fish eat your dead skin off.

I’m not joking.

The article said that fish pedicures use doctor fish, who evidently love this sort of thing. You have to wonder why they didn’t put their medical degree to better use. To me, the only thing more disgusting than putting your feet in a bucket of flesh-eating fish is being a fish who has to eat dead skin for dinner.

Yuck.

I don’t have time to get pedicures, though I love them. The last one I had, my feet came out clean and smooth as a saint’s, except for the red nail polish. I opted for red because if you’re going to get a pedicure once a year, you have to make it count. Red toenail polish signals that you’re single and ready to mingle, at least in your mind.

Otherwise, the sight of a middle-aged woman’s foot is not for the fainthearted, especially in mid-winter. Only women have the constitution to deal with it, like childbirth and diaper genies.

I can barely stomach trimming my own toenails, which I do with one of those cheapo stainless-steel clippers from CVS. I try to cut them evenly, but they always end up pointy enough to qualify as a lethal weapon in most jurisdictions.

Plus, my scientific observation is that nails thicken with time, so that a fifty-year-old toenail has the thickness of a ram’s horn and is almost as pretty. My toenail trimming would go a lot faster if I replaced the clipper with a chainsaw.

And then there are calluses, which are fun. I can’t imagine a doctor fish eating through my calluses, unless he was a surgeon fish.

Or a sturgeon fish.

Plus my calluses have toughened as the years have gone by, adding layer after layer, like the Earth’s crust. Sometimes the calluses sprout cracks like fault lines, and when they finally split open, I have my own personal earthquake.

My feet are a natural disaster.

Daughter Francesca is grossed out by my feet, but they have their advantages. I don’t have to wear shoes, as I appear to be growing my own pair of wooden clogs.

I don’t need a pedicurist, I need a blacksmith.

Of course, my toes are no picnic, either. I don’t know when this happened, maybe at about age 40, but all my toes have been become one. In other words, where I used have five vertical toes on each foot, I now appear to have one toe on each foot, but it’s horizontal.

Please tell me this happened to you, too.

And what’s up with our little toe?

Do you even have a little toe anymore? What happens to that little toe, when we get older? Has it been ignored for so long that it simply decides to vanish? Does it say to itself, I wonder if anybody will even notice that I’m gone?

If you ask me, that little piggy is going to market and never coming back.

The saddest thing about the little toe is the littlest toenail.

Can you even see yours, ladies?

I don’t know if you have the Amazing Disappearing Toenail, but I do. About 10 years ago, it was normal size, then it magically cut itself in half, then in half again and again. Now it’s a toe sliver. If I could lose weight like my littlest toenail, I’d be Lindsay Lohan.