Giving New Meaning to Guinea Pig

Caveat: In telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—in order to poke fun at myself ultimately—I may offend people. So let me say up front that I’m sorry. I just can’t see a way around it.

Once upon a time, I was career driven. I had assistants. I supervised people. I submitted budgets. I was respected. I got big salary increases just by changing jobs. I stayed in nice hotels and expensed room service. I had lots of suits—pant suits, skirt suits—and shoes that cost as much as the suits. (ohmygod I just remembered that right before I resigned as Director of Programs at a non-profit, I bought the cutest Ralph Lauren high polish calf loafers in navy with silver hardware for a ridiculously discounted price of like 120 dollars and Liz said, as I prepared to make $50 a day as a sub, “I hope you can eat those shoes for lunch.” Touché.) And then I became a teacher.

I took a salary cut but I still had nice suits. And I wore them. Then I lost weight, then I gained weight, and then I decided that—regardless of my weight—I didn’t need to wear suits when some of my colleagues wore velour “pant suits” [read: sweat suits] and corduroy jumpers. Meanwhile I had that issue with my foot for which I ultimately had surgery but which temporarily left me without dress and skirt-worthy shoes. So I started wearing pants. Lined pants, mind you, from Lord & Taylor, but pants nonetheless. With nice sweaters and blazers. And even though I rebooted my cute shoes collection (pun intended), I just never went back to skirts and dresses for school. I felt like I still made a good, professional impression, and dress pants were easier. No searching for hose without holes in the black of night (when I wake up). (Did you know you can buy a decent bottle of wine for the price of stockings?)

And then, recently, I was shopping on line and saw a dress, with a sort of Pucci-inspired print. Very geometric. Bold. Very cute, I thought. And when it arrived, very forgiving. Before I even wore it, I thought, okay, I’m going to wear dresses again. To heck with the rest of the faculty that has, collectively, as much fashion sense as prairie skirt. So I ordered a couple more. Even though I have two skirts, hanging upstairs as I write, that I haven’t gotten around to wearing yet.

Yep.

Well I wore the Pucci-esque shift dress today. With black opaques and black boots. (So groovy.) And I got a lot of compliments. But I also remembered one reason I stopped wearing dresses when I walked around for eight hours as a human experiment in displacement.

Okay?...

That shit stuff matter that gets squeezed on my thighs and my belly has got to go somewhere. And frankly I need no help creating muffin top. The alternative? Hiking the tights up higher, high enough in fact to reach just under my bra? Well that created the effect in my mid-section of hiding an over–inflated effect Mylar balloon under my dress. Put a stick up my butt and fly me around the room.There was no winning.

I probably should have just taken the tights off, but I didn't. But now I know better. And I'll look cute over cocktails or dinner. But not in the classroom.