Ok, so I went to the target this weekend and got one of these body slimming devices, that are supposed to be the less expensive version of spanxx, by the woman who started that company. Vanity thy name is youth, or rather youth that’s slipping away from you. I paid $14 with the thought that somehow, I would look in my grey pencil skirt much like the woman on the box in a grey pencil skirt, streamlined and hoisted into place. I think I realize my error in this thought because the woman on the box is a cartoon. 

What I am, in fact wearing, is a medieval torture device in a new guise. For the few minutes a day that I’m standing up, walking around in my office, I look moderately like I used to about a year ago (i.e. my arse is about where it should be not sagging an inch down the back of my leg from where it once was), and I am not completely uncomfortable. For the rest of the day, when in transit wearing a dress coat or sitting at my desk with the waist band curling towards my navel or constricting my lower ribs so tightly I can hardly breathe, it is completely worthless. I will give this woman the fact that her patented leg openings do not bind or create any kind of uncomfortable area on my thighs, or indeed any funny bulge-like areas in that vicinity, but the rest of the garment leaves something to be desired. 

She recommends you wear them as panties and I of course say thanks but no thanks, but if you did the tiny and very loosely woven crotch section leaves something to be desired … The main issue is this aforementioned constriction and rolling of the top that acts just like a regular pair of pantyhose. I find that it’s easier to reach down my shirt and tug it up than actually lift the bottom hem of my shirt and push fervently with no result. Besides the fact that the back half of the “waistband” has found its favorite resting spot just below my ribs making a nice roll of back fat in the area between it and my bra strap. 

What on earth is the point of going around the whole day feeling completely uncomfortable for the added benefit of about an inch of arse lifting? It does nothing for the ever-expanding bulge that is my tummy, in fact I think nothing less than a boned corset from the turn of the century could put a dent in that now. Why do we as women always hope and believe that this miraculously painful thing we have donned will make us look like we used to with little to no effort on our part? I have to admit the aging process is most disconcerting …