Dear Lightdays Pantiliners,
Hi! Remember me? I wrote a few weeks ago to chastise you for changing your adhesive. I have since bought larger underpants to fit my ever-widening behind. Your pantiliners now stay in place as per usual.
Pantiliners from the same boxes that produced the ones that previously flew about my underpants at will.
So, um, yeah…I falsely accused you of wrongdoing. My bad.
Chagrined,
Sheila
In my family, to “store” something for someone means to take it out of the unused corner into which they have shoved it, fix it up, and make it your own. Should they decide they want it back at some future point, claim it has been your property all along and vehemently deny any knowledge otherwise.
I offered to store my sister’s bicycle for her the last time I was in Fresno. It was hanging in the corner where I place it a few years ago, looking dusty and forlorn. It is a Gary Fisher Wahoo mountain bike minus the front shock absorbers and with a more comfy gel seat.
Plus I added this:
Because everyone should have a happy, colorful bicycle bell. I ring it as I approach people from behind and yell, “Passing on your left!”
I took a three and a half mile ride over to my friend Janice’s house this morning to check out her garage sale, where she sold six old, sturdy dining room chairs that had been gathering dust in my garage.
No one in my family offered to store them for me so it was time to let them go. They sold by 9:15. Hooray!
Merced has two great cross-town trails that meander along waterways: Bear Creek and Black Rascal Creek. (City of Merced Bikeway Map in pdf format.) They both run east to west and, though there are several bike lanes along the main drags running north to south, frankly I do not trust Merced drivers not to run me down. I tend to ride on the sidewalks, even if it is illegal.
Here is Bob the bike, all fresh from his Spring Tune-Up at Kevin’s Bikes. (I would link to Kevin’s Bikes, but apparently they have no website. A business with no website. Crazy.)
I have ordered new brakes because the existing ones are literally falling apart. Now all I need is a helmet, a bicycle lock, a water bottle with a squirt top, and possibly a rear view mirror. Dunno about that last one. Maybe the helmet will not block my view when I turn my head as did the the giant pink visor I wore today.
I broke down and bought some granny panties the other day. By “granny panties,” I mean Fruit of the Loom 100% cotton briefs for ladies.
Sadly, they are incredibly comfortable. I bought the 6-pack “wardrobe,” which came with two in white and four IN COLOR. They are very bright and take some getting use to since I normally wear flesh-tone panties to match my flesh-tone bra so you never notice my underwear through my clothes.
In theory.
But now, NOW, I have panties in royal purple, bright yellow, polka dot, and yellow and blue flowers with pink and purple centers. I feel all little-girlie and special. I may go out and buy some footie pajamas next.
Oh wait, perhaps not the best choice for summertime in the San Joaquin Valley. Also, I had a pair as a kid and found it frustrating to have to take the whole thing off to pee. Most inconvenient, especially when half asleep in the middle of the night. Tip: Should you ever shop for footie pajamas, be sure to get the kind with a butt flap.
So the bad news is I now own cotton granny underpants. The good news is I finally know the correct panty size of my ass, if anything about an expanding backside can be considered good news.
But wait…OH MY GOD, I just realized I have fallen prey to The Beauty Myth. Dammit!
Okay, change of mindset here. A quote from the Urban Dictionary: I wear granny panties because I'd rather have baggy undies than a string in my ass.
That pretty much sums it up. From this point forward, I vow to happily and proudly wear comfortable, cotton briefs. Though I will no longer need to dig underwear out of my butt crack on a regular basis, should my comfortable, cotton briefs somehow find their way up there, I will simply reach around and tug them out, unhesitatingly, in public, with no regard for what bystanders may think of me.
I further resolve to wear short sleeves regardless of my less-than-Michelle-Obama-toned arms. I may even go sleeveless. My body is my body. Period.
It’s so liberating, this “I could give a crap” attitude!
Hey, déjà vu. I have had this attitude before. Hm…it went away for a while. Whatever dude, it’s back now and NEVER GOING AWAY AGAIN.
Must be all the endorphins from my regular exercise regime.
Next mission: to find an exercise bra that both fits and prevents bouncing while running yet does not require gymnastics to get on and off. Fact or fable?
Dear Lightdays Pantiliners,
You changed your adhesive. That is not a question. Here is the question:
DEAR GOD WHY?
In the past, your adhesive was so good I would inadvertently pull off the top half of the pantiliner and have to go back and get my fingernail under the edge of the adhesive backing to remove the rest of it.
Now, your pantiliners fly about the inside of my underpants at will. I never know where I am going to find one. When pulling down my underpants in the bathroom stall at work, it tends to jumps off and attach itself to my thigh. This is problematic. No matter how I try to put it back and smooth it down, the adhesive never sticks again.
(I just realized that implies it stuck the first time. Ha ha! How silly of me.)
So there I am in the bathroom stall with a pantiliner stuck to my thigh wondering why I should suddenly have to start carrying backup pantiliners around with me after thirty odd years of not having this problem then realizing the next one is not going to stick either so what is the point?
Could it be my recent weight gain caused a change in physiology so drastic my newly enhanced butt cheeks are forcibly ripping the pantiliner from my underpants and passing it to my thigh in some unidentified bathroom fast break maneuver?
Though some days they simply wad it up and leave it lying at the bottom of my underpants in a hermetically sealed sausage roll.
I tried switching from Regular to Long to no avail. Either my butt cheeks have some serious territorial issues or your new adhesive should be featured on the Fail blog.
And please do not try to blame it on my underpants. They are the same material they have always been so arguing I have introduced some new space age material that clashes with your adhesive is just silly. Besides, you should be designing for all fabrics anyway.
I currently have three giant boxes of pantiliners I do not know what to do with. The first is my original box. The second is the replacement box I purchased thinking the first was a random bad adhesive box that slipped through your quality control. The third is a box of Longs that turn out to have the same adhesive problem.
I have exceeded my pantiliner budget and am currently dipping into my leg waxing budget. I am sure you do not want to be responsible for Hairy Sheila.
Please reply soonest.
Respectfully,
Sheila
Related post: When Pantyliners Go Rogue
It has been six months since my last message. I am not entirely sure what has transpired during that time. Something called “the holidays” and “tax season,” whatever those are. All I know is it involved sitting behind a desk all day pretending Sweet and Salty Chocolate Almond Balance Bare’s comprise a balanced diet.
My host does not want me to tell you how much weight it gained. It got on the Wii Balance Board and was horrified. It has never weighed more. In fact, its last top weight was fifteen pounds lighter.
Ow! Stop it! I won’t tell them the number! Ow!
My host wishes me to convey its weight is not important. It is how the body feels, how limber it is, how healthy, that matters.
It is planning a Fit Party, where friends bring over their various Wii exercise DVD’s so they can evaluate the ones they do not yet have. So far, only Wii Fit, EA Sports Active, and My Fitness Coach are on the table. Do please suggest any other personal trainer-type DVD’s you know about for the Wii.
I don’t want it to lose its momentum.
If you have been wondering where I am and what I am doing - or more specifically: why the hell I have not been posting to my blog - well, I ran out of funny.
I had no idea that could happen…until it did. It started some time ago but this year’s tax season did me in. I am not new to tax season. I am aware of the long hours. I am intimately familiar with having no time to plan proper meals much less exercise for health and well being.
The difference this year is I gained weight because of it. A LOT of weight. That never happened before. And now I can no longer go tra-la-la-ing along and letting Life have its way with me. I have to do something.
Dammit.
I started with the Wii Fit and balance board. I have mixed feelings about the Wii Fit. On the plus side, it is excellent for getting couch potatoes moving. I cannot stress that enough. For someone who has been inactive for a long time, some of the exercises can be quite challenging yet are not so intimidating you give up.
On the down side, I have only been doing the Wii Fit for a little over a month and already I am bored. I have unlocked all of the exercises and, frankly, I thought there would be more. I will continue to unlock longer durations and more repetitions but I expected a larger variety of exercises. Also, you have to manually choose each exercise. When you finish one, it will often pop up and tell you to do one of the other related exercises, yet you cannot simply click on the popup to go to the other exercise. You have to manually back out of where you are, wait for your “score,” wait for your piggy bank to register how much time you spent on the first exercise, then go find the recommended one…which by now you have forgotten.
Disappointing.
I will continue to do the Wii Fit, including making anyone who comes to my house try to hit the soccer ball with their head, but I expect delivery of EA Sports Active
Please ignore the “BUY NOW FROM AMAZON.COM” in your face on the right. Just click on the pretty picture to go to Amazon.com to see a short video demonstrating how it works.
I am looking forward to having a more interactive program with my very own personal trainer, however virtual. I have high hopes, providing I live through the first week of course.
To summarize, I have been immersed in self-loathing lately and unable to find much of anything funny. Also, Facebook sucks the creativity out of even the hardiest of souls. But do not forsake me yet. I expect much more energy in the coming weeks.
Just ignore the smell of Ben-Gay and pretend you do not hear the whimpering.
Namaste.
I went underwear shopping the other day. Very exciting, I know, but here’s the thing: how often do you have to buy a different size of underwear?
The Bra
Bras, yes, the slightest change in weight can result in the need for a larger or smaller cup size. Lucky for me, J.C. Penney was having a Bra Fit Event.
Because bras are serious business. Didn’t you know? Oh yes, saleswomen walk around with tape measures draped around their necks like scarves in winter. Every fifteen minutes, the loudspeaker announces the Big Event and urges you to rush to the lingerie area to have someone feel you up.
Actually, they urge you to request a “complimentary personal fitting” with one of their “certified bra fit specialists” but it amounts to the same thing.
I measured myself at home and was pretty sure I knew what I was doing but lo, I was mistaken. I knew the old way of measuring was wrong, where you add four inches to get your band size (devised before the invention of elastic, apparently) but there is some dissent as to whether you measure just under your breasts for your band size or just over the top of your breasts. The latter turned out to be more accurate for me. Go figure. The cup size measurement technique remains the same: measure over the fullest part of your breasts, subtract your band size, and each inch represents a cup size.
Once you have your correct bra size, don’t get cocky. You are so not done yet. Just like a size 10 dress is a size 12 somewhere else and a size 8 or 6 in the really expensive stores (where you literally pay for your delusion,) all bras are not created equal. And once you find a brand and style you like but decide you want it in multiple colors, you must try each color on to be sure it fits the same. Ditto for a different style in the same brand. I know it sounds insane. Trust me on this.
Twenty three bras later, I finally found one that fit perfectly. ONE. And it isn’t even all that pretty. But at least my boobs will look like boobs now and not squished, bulging aliens from the planet HereComeMyBoobs.
The Panty
So I am exhausted from the Bra Fit Event marathon, ready to just grab some panties and go home, but no. As I mentioned previously (see #4), my butt is not the same size as it used to be. Contrary to logic, measuring my butt did not help determine the correct panty size.
And so began the trying on of the panties. Which you must do over the top of your existing panties, due to hygiene concerns as well as the “euw” factor. It is like trying on a cocktail dress over jeans: it can be done but you cannot tell if it really fits so what is the point?
I opted for a few that boasted “no panty lines” that seemed to fit relatively well in the store, only to discover they achieve the “no panty line” effect by traveling up and disappearing into your butt crack when you take your first step. Not exactly what I had in mind.
I also tried on some standard briefs, as opposed to the high-cut ones I usually wear, thinking this might take care of the panty line issue. Alas, I now know the meaning of the term “granny panties.” The waistband sat just below my lovely new bra band. How very Ed Grimley.
I was too depressed to try on the boy shorts. I’ll just order them by mail and be humiliated in the privacy of my own home, thank you. Meanwhile, I will dig panties out of my butt crack.
I’ll try to do it when no one is looking.
_______________________________
Life doesn’t fit.
Life is change.
Life just is.
I bought the Wii Fit and Balance Board, even after seeing this parody:
But people, I have GOT to do something. “Just Do It” wasn’t working for me and I do love playing with my little Mii, so I figured what the heck?
Should you decide to get a Wii Fit yourself, I must warn you: your Mii takes on your actual height and weight for the Fit. That’s right, the tall, willowy Mii you designed shrinks down to your actual height and balloons out to your actual weight. Most disconcerting.
I have not tried every exercise yet but my favorite so far is running. I know! Me…running! I like that you are running through a cartooney Mii landscape where you have pretty things to look at and keep you distracted from the fact that you are bouncing your ovaries all over the place, while you wonder if the castle you are passing is, in fact, Hogwarts and other Mii’s periodically cheer you on from the side of the trail.
I do wish they would add your little Mii to the yoga to make it more entertaining. I love yoga but the two available trainers, a male or a female, are quite vanilla and boring. Trying to stand on one effing leg while not falling on your effing ass and keeping your little red dot in the effing target zone is enough distraction to keep from getting bored so far, but watching my tiny Mii fall over while trying to stand on its tiny Mii legs would be more entertaining.
Wish me luck. I shall report back periodically. Maybe. If I actually see results.
Perhaps I should remove all chocolate from the house so as not to sabotage my new resolve.
Last week, I had a cracked tooth, a cavity, an annoying bump on the inside of my cheek I would inadvertently bite down on every other meal, and a less than efficiently running car.
This week, I have a temporary crown, a filling, a hole in my cheek where the annoyance used to be, and a healthy car.
And a big VISA bill.
My credit card balance has been hovering around $2,000 since July. I used to pay the balance off every month but then my love affair with Tax Season ended. He ran off with that floozy Free Time and took my overtime cash flow with him. The bastard.
I am not sure which I resent more: having lots of free time with no money to spend, or lots of money with no free time in which to shop/travel/garden/renovate.
Or maybe it is having a dental reimbursement plan rather than real dental insurance. A dental reimbursement plan that covers up to $250 per year.
HA! Hahahahahahahahahah!
I do not know how much dental work $250/yr buys you where you live but here all you get are two cleanings a year plus x-rays. So if you need, say, a filling, you are on your own. And that funky bump on the inside of your cheek? That is dental too – not medical, hence not covered by your medical insurance - even though you have to go to an oral SURGEON to get it removed. Doesn’t surgeon=medical? Apparently not when it comes to insurance billing.
On a positive note, I got a new prescription for Vicodin out of it. Thank god, because I was running out of my old one from who knows how long ago and we all know expired medication is bad.
I dutifully took a pill as soon as I got home so it would kick in before the numbness wore off, then lay on the couch for two hours feeling nauseous. What the hell, Vicodin? You used to work just like a really strong aspirin, taking the pain away but leaving me clear headed and nausea-free. Tax Season and Free Time put you up to it, didn’t they.
They are such assholes.
I have been crowned. Twice, in fact. What is it the old people say as they reflect on their life? “I wish I had taken better care of my teeth.”
I was first coronated about eight years ago in conjunction with a root canal. Fun! They were short handed that day so I had to sit all alone with with my mouth open for about twenty minutes because the tech installed metal measuring pins in the hole where my tooth used to be but got called away before she could actually take the measurements. I would have impaled my lower gums had I closed my mouth. The mile of rubber she previously attached as a barrier around the surrounding teeth left a nice trail for the drool to follow. Kind of like a mini Slip-and-Slide, only in winter with no actual sliders but someone left the hose on.
This week’s coronation was just a crown with no preliminary excavation of the tooth bed. The tooth was cracked, apparently. I had experienced no sensitivity in that area but they showed me x-rays to prove it.
As if I could actually read them.
I was a bit worried the numbing would not work or would wear off half way through the procedure, because I have heard dental horror stories from friends and family and, though it has never happened to me, it could happen, hence I must worry about it. But it didn’t. Thank god for audio books:
and try not to laugh out loud at the parts where he describes the clothing they wore in the 70’s? I’ll take 70’s Reminiscing for two hundred, Alex. *Flash back to how awesomely cool I looked in extra-wide bell bottoms and a Star Wars T-shirt as I skated down the block on my stiff, pointy, blue, plastic skateboard from Sears with non-articulating wheels.*
Let us hope this temporary crown makes it through next week’s extended Thanksgiving noshing. (Ten working days to get the crown made? Seriously?)
No holiday brittle for me. How about crunchy Chex Mix? I will chew on the left side. Promise.
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