SPANX
Yesterday was Ellie's Wedding Day!
Ellie (nee) Reilly. I remember when she was born. I remember babysitting her since she was a tot. I wiped her fannie, pushed her in swings, fed her popcorn at the movies, and watched her grow into one fabulous woman. She's the first to give me hugs at family get togethers and the first to laugh at my jokes. It's no surprise she chose a down-to-earth, adorable, genuine dude to navigate the rest of her life with. I've inherited another cousin and another musician in my life: Dan Waddell. I cannot wait to watch their life unfold. And in order to celebrate with them properly, I prepared myself to boogie at the South Shore Cultural Center.
Which means I squeezed my lower half into an Irish sausage with the most dreaded of casings: SPANX.
Their advertisement includes three cartoon figures of women who actually don't need SPANX at all. Perfectly slender women with flat abdomens and sexy legs positioning their toes en pointe grace the front of the package. And they're all doing something that no woman wearing SPANX is doing: smiling.
I was not smiling when I laid down on my bed to wrestle myself into my nude-hued SPANX yesterday. Because I knew I was risking internal intestinal damage and restricted air flow for the rest of my day. And evening. I yanked. I squatted. I shimmied.
I did it.
My brother Bobby honked and we headed out. By the time I descended the third stair of our porch, Bill said, "Oh no. Your nylons are ripped."
That didn't take long. A two inch snag graced the back of my right leg. Thanks, SPANX.
The wedding was a smash. We ate, drank, laughed, hugged, danced, reunited. I tried to give Bill a head's up when I had to use the ladies room. I informed him that I might be gone for 20 minutes. Don't send a search party. I'm wearing SPANX.
I recently taught rhetorical appeals in my sophomore English classes. Perhaps I can use this package to reinforce the content. The sleeve offers plenty of pathos (emotional appeals) but limited logos (logical appeals.) The only presence of logos is the statistical height and weight chart to help consumers purchase the correct size. There's different sizes? You could have fooled me. Remove a pair of SPANX from the package and one would think even Tinker Bell would have difficulty crushing her pixie limbs into these things.
These are the emotional appeals that keep bringing women back: Be a knockout with slimming support and flawless legs. Cotton gusset (crotch). Sized waistband for comfort is soft and has no binding rubber cord. Well, I would hope that in 2019 there is no binding rubber cord. Is that actually a bonus? Corsets and body girdles were the fad during the Victorian era. Have we not evolved? According to Wikipedia, in 1795 a corset was defined as a "stiff supporting and constricting undergarment for the waist, worn chiefly by women to shape the figure."
Whoa. To all my feminist comrades out there, we have not made significant changes since 1795. The Movement has its work cut out for them, for body garments need to be addressed. I can see the posters now. Our best emotional appeal will be real photos of women laying in the ER with punctured colons that resulted from wearing SPANX to their company Christmas party.
The only positive of this incredible wedding coming to an end was removing my SPANX and disposing of them immediately. There is no need to wash and line dry. Good riddance. Until the next wedding at least.
Ellie (nee) Reilly. I remember when she was born. I remember babysitting her since she was a tot. I wiped her fannie, pushed her in swings, fed her popcorn at the movies, and watched her grow into one fabulous woman. She's the first to give me hugs at family get togethers and the first to laugh at my jokes. It's no surprise she chose a down-to-earth, adorable, genuine dude to navigate the rest of her life with. I've inherited another cousin and another musician in my life: Dan Waddell. I cannot wait to watch their life unfold. And in order to celebrate with them properly, I prepared myself to boogie at the South Shore Cultural Center.
Which means I squeezed my lower half into an Irish sausage with the most dreaded of casings: SPANX.
Their advertisement includes three cartoon figures of women who actually don't need SPANX at all. Perfectly slender women with flat abdomens and sexy legs positioning their toes en pointe grace the front of the package. And they're all doing something that no woman wearing SPANX is doing: smiling.
I was not smiling when I laid down on my bed to wrestle myself into my nude-hued SPANX yesterday. Because I knew I was risking internal intestinal damage and restricted air flow for the rest of my day. And evening. I yanked. I squatted. I shimmied.
I did it.
My brother Bobby honked and we headed out. By the time I descended the third stair of our porch, Bill said, "Oh no. Your nylons are ripped."
That didn't take long. A two inch snag graced the back of my right leg. Thanks, SPANX.
The wedding was a smash. We ate, drank, laughed, hugged, danced, reunited. I tried to give Bill a head's up when I had to use the ladies room. I informed him that I might be gone for 20 minutes. Don't send a search party. I'm wearing SPANX.
I recently taught rhetorical appeals in my sophomore English classes. Perhaps I can use this package to reinforce the content. The sleeve offers plenty of pathos (emotional appeals) but limited logos (logical appeals.) The only presence of logos is the statistical height and weight chart to help consumers purchase the correct size. There's different sizes? You could have fooled me. Remove a pair of SPANX from the package and one would think even Tinker Bell would have difficulty crushing her pixie limbs into these things.
These are the emotional appeals that keep bringing women back: Be a knockout with slimming support and flawless legs. Cotton gusset (crotch). Sized waistband for comfort is soft and has no binding rubber cord. Well, I would hope that in 2019 there is no binding rubber cord. Is that actually a bonus? Corsets and body girdles were the fad during the Victorian era. Have we not evolved? According to Wikipedia, in 1795 a corset was defined as a "stiff supporting and constricting undergarment for the waist, worn chiefly by women to shape the figure."
Whoa. To all my feminist comrades out there, we have not made significant changes since 1795. The Movement has its work cut out for them, for body garments need to be addressed. I can see the posters now. Our best emotional appeal will be real photos of women laying in the ER with punctured colons that resulted from wearing SPANX to their company Christmas party.
The only positive of this incredible wedding coming to an end was removing my SPANX and disposing of them immediately. There is no need to wash and line dry. Good riddance. Until the next wedding at least.
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