The older I get, the more my body looks like it would benefit from Willy Wonka’s taffy puller. Putting it less vaguely, I’m getting shorter and fatter. I’m down to eating one meal a day and I still look like a weeble. I even spent several months attempting supplements and exercises, but do you know how awful the body noises are when attempting squats naked? So, when we went to NYC for Starving Artist’s college graduation, I invested in several pairs of Spanx. Not jiggling like jello seemed like the least I could do to reduce the Ma and Pa Kettle impression that we leave everywhere.

I did not jiggle. I did sweat buckets. Not only did looking like a soggy kitchen sponge not cause me to lose any weight, it made the area under my spanx feel like it needed to be surgically removed. The city was filled with thin women in flowy sundresses, always speed walking their way to someplace other than where they were. In that moment, I realized how wrong I was to ever frown at the people who paparazzi try to upskirt photograph. “Ew. They need more clothing under there to keep from touching bare skin to public seating.” Wrong! They are ventilating and preventing athletes foot crotch.

Life is too short for spanx misery. Rubber bands are for papers. Cotton is for tender bits.