It’s November, so it must be Thanksgiving time. The time of year when we construct elaborate lists enumerating our blessings and reviewing just where life has propelled or drop-kicked us to in the past twelve months.
Frequently, writers fortunate enough to claim regular column space use the holiday season to convey sentimental messages they wouldn’t dream of voicing any other time, especially if they have the reputation of being a little snarky. (Hey, I know my flaws.)
While it’s appropriate to get a bit mushy, it’s also easy to go overboard and overdose on sunshine, turning our lives into a script from a Disney movie, gushing over the millions of small miracles that surround us daily, while the standard flock of bluebirds flies around singing in the background.
I’m all for being grateful, but sunshine and singing bluebirds don’t remotely reflect my reality, or anyone else’s, for that matter. So this year, I thought I’d wax a little less philosophical and a little more practical regarding my myriad of blessings. (I’m still going to get mushy, but I promise it’ll be brief.)
First, I am thankful for Spanx. No, let me amend that. I am profoundly, eternally, overwhelmingly thankful for Spanx, as well as for any other garment that, with the help of steel reinforced cables or some space-aged fabric (i.e. spandex) that could reinforce the Hoover Damn, keeps my parts where they belong.
Spanx are the undergarment of choice for those of us engaged in a full-scale war with gravity. Spanx are to this generation of women what corsets and girdles were to previous generations, but without the whale bones.
Spanx not only puts my stuff back where it’s supposed to be without endangering wildlife, it also redistributes it so it not only looks like I have less stuff to start with, but the stuff I do have is lumpless, bulgeless and flawless—or at least less flawed, which works, too.
And not only does Spanx do underwear, they now make jeans! Jeans—the bane of every woman’s existence. We love our jeans, we want our jeans, but shopping for jeans ranks right up there with root canal or the annual visit to the gynecologist. It’s painful, not to mention humiliating.
I have jeans in four different sizes in my closet, every one of which fits in some places and doesn’t in others. But Spanx jeans? I can get my bum into that. As for the Spanx in general, Beyonce wears Spanx. I’ve seen the pictures. If it’s good enough for Bey, it’s good enough for me.
Second, I am thankful for high definition television, which allows me to see that the Hollywood glitterati are covered by actual human skin and not plastic—well some of them, anyway. The big thing about HDTV is texture, and texture, in the form of really big pores and not so fine lines and wrinkles, along with a really good look at that plastic surgery, is exactly the gift HDTV bestows on those of us watching.
Mary, this cracked me up. I only recently realized that Spanx is a real product. I’ve heard the term for years, but until someone took a picture of Spanx that didn’t do so well in the laundry, I thought it was some sort of cliche. What do I know? I will have to put my glasses on now when watching TV to see if I can enjoy that reality you mentioned about the Hollywood glitterati. Nice!
Hi Jane, and thanks for the kind words. I take what I can get to make me feel better about myself! Enjoy the Spanx!