Kat's Rambling Mind

I recently gave in and purchased some “body smoothing shapewear”. Shapewear is the new term for “girdle”. I never thought I’d see the day I’d wear one, but here we are. It does make my church dress look smoother, and it’s not as hot as I thought it would be. The one I selected is one piece that you hitch up over your shoulders to anchor it in place. It’s like a swimsuit on steroids, with latex and mesh panels in the gut area for optimal fat containment and smoothing power. It’s truly a miracle of engineering. I stepped into it and poured myself into its confines. I swear, the things we women do in the name of vanity.

Well, all was going fine; I made it through church and headed to my brother’s house for a visit. That’s when I realized I needed to use the bathroom. It was either undress completely and take the thing off from the top down…or unhook it from underneath. I finally wriggled around and got the thing unhooked, without fanfare. So far, so good.

Suddenly, and with an audible WHOOSH sound, that thing rolled up at top speed. The spandex torture device came to rest just under my armpits. As I stood there in a tangle of dress and latex, arms flailing while trying to wrangle my girdle back down, I started to laugh. Since I had stepped into the thing when I put it on, I didn’t consider what a feat it would be to contain my chunky self into a girdle from the top down, all while doubled over trying to secure it with three little inconveniently placed hooks.

I laughed even harder when I caught my reflection in the mirror, because the image reminded me of something that used to happen when we’d go stay with our grandmother Kate (“Mamaw”). Growing up, our Mamaw Kate lived on the main drag in Hogansville, GA. Her house was the last one on the left, right before the railroad tracks that ran through town. When I say right before, I mean so close you could stand at the side of the house and practically give the conductor a high five as the train went through.

As you might expect, when the trains came through full speed, it rattled the whole house; when this happened, it sometimes caused the old-fashioned window shades to snap and fly up to the top of the window, where they would flap helplessly, until they were worn out from the excitement. We would be a little rattled as well, because the shades suddenly flying up was quite startling. I pictured that girdle flying up just like those window shades used to do, and that was it for me. I was done.

I managed to finally get myself dressed again, and I made the decision to learn to love my lumps and bumps, because putting that much mass under that much pressure can’t be good for you. And as soon as I can dislodge my liver from behind my earlobe, I’m going to get rid of that thing. Round is a shape too, and I’m here to embrace it fully.