November 20, 2008

A Cautionary Tale (Complete with Pictures)

You know you've been tempted. Perhaps it was when Oprah featured them on one of her shows, or maybe it was late one night and the infomercial was fairly convincing that they would CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

Some of you may have even succumb to temptation and purchased them, with hopes of impressing your friends. Better yet, you had visions of causing your husbands palms to sweat just like they did the first time the two of you met, and you were wearing your favorite pair of acid washed Guess? jeans. Of course, if your memory is correct, he was wearing those crazy cool military boots and leaning all relaxed and devil-may-carish against a column outside the local Baskin Robbins ....

sigh

uh ... wait

where was I?

Oh yes ... the deceptive promises of Shapewear. That's at least it's more subtle name. There's also the much more obvious title of Lipo in a Box, and of course Oprah's favorite, Spanx.

Whatever you call them, I've always been a bit suspicious of them. Control top panty hose make me want to crawl back under the covers and call it a day. So I was never brave enough to try on something, whose name alone insinuates some form of corporal punishment.

My teenie tiny toothpicked size mother on the other hand feels she needs all the help she can get. So after being mesmerized by a late night infomercial she purchased the promise of youth and waited patiently as it arrived in the mail. The good news was that her SIZE SMALL bodysuit came with a free gift of thigh shapers as well. (Did you catch the SIZE SMALL reference? Why on earth would they even make a SIZE SMALL??? And why on earth would someone (my mother) who IS a size small (my mother) feel the need to buy one???? How can you want to look LESS than a size small??? These questions keep me up at night ... but I digress.)

When the package arrived in the mail, she gleefully ripped through the plastic and looked hopefully at her new bodysuit. Perplexed, she realized that the small seemed really .... um ... small. Still, not one to give up, she begin the long and arduos process of trying to wedge her body into it. I won't go into the gory details, but suffice it to say her hopes of perfection were dashed as soon as she realized that bending over and breathing were the sacrifices of beauty. She immediately called the company and arranged to return the torure devices poste-haste. The good news (according to the customer service rep) was that she could keep the thigh shapers as her free gift.

Which is why my daughters now have some new leggings to add to their dress-up collection.



Ladies, you have been warned ... ignore the Sirens seductive call from the shores of fashion. Your hopes (lo, your very breath capacity) could be dashed on the jagged rocks. Shapewear that a 3 year old can easily pass off as capri TIGHTS is just wrong! M'kay?

November 19, 2008

Up A Tree ...

Wordless Wednesday
I LOVE how he plays with our kids! This post could also be titled "Where my children get their photogenic tendencies" But that's such a long title.