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The Boomers Rock Radio Show and the host Tom Matt, conduct interviews with many professionals on topics relating to boomers. This particular podcast talks about the importance of generativity. Learn more about this topic and many others on the Boomers Rock Radio Show!
The Importance of Generativity Podcast - with Dr. Deborah Heiser
Sixty isn’t the “New” Anything
BLOGGER: RENEE FISHER
I’m venting. I’m seriously so tired of hearing people say things like “Sixty is the new fifty.” Or forty. Or even thirty. This morning, on one of the talk shows, I caught about 30 seconds of the guest going on and on about how sixty-year olds should go mountain climbing and have pajama parties and join Facebook and meet people on Match.com, whatever they want. OK, I thought, I like the general concept. But then the host asked, “So sixty is the new forty?” I froze. The guest chirpily answered, “No, sixty is the new twenty!!!”
OK, folks, here’s the deal. Sixty isn’t anything other than sixty. Got it? If you are twenty, and you like to jump up and down on a bed and have pillow fights, does that make twenty the new five?” If you are twenty, you are twenty. If you are sixty, you are sixty. Sorry, but the iPad doesn’t, to my knowledge, include a time machine.
I know what people are trying to say, but I’d like it said in a different way, a meaningful way: Sixty-year olds are redefining what it means to be sixty. We aren’t any age other than what we are. We are simply giving a new definition of what that is. My sixty three isn’t twenty (A quick check of my body parts will confirm that). But, my sixty three is vastly different than my parents’ sixty three.
Sixty year olds now have access to all the wonders medical science can provide, including replacing or repairing a lot of internal and external body parts. Medications and nutrition keep us alive longer. Gyms are on every street corner. And the internet allows up to connect with each other in a way that our parents’ generation couldn’t have conceived of (I met my Now Husband Dan on Match.com).
So, please, give us the respect we deserve. I’ve worked hard to get to where I am today. I wouldn’t change that for anything. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to magically change some things (two, for example). It just means I like me and I like me at sixty three. I’m not the “new twenty.” I’m the “new sixty three.”
I’m finished now.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50 www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist for examiner.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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Midlife Body Flow
BLOGGER: RENEE FISHER
Twice a week, I take a Pilates Reformer class at my gym. The “Reformer” is a big, lightly padded board on wheels, with levers, pulleys, weights, and other components, all employed without the benefit of a user’s manual. It was either invented by Mr Pilates, the same person who invented people like Madonna, who is one of his disciples. Or, it might have been invented by some unnamed person who wanted to “reform” what Mr Pilates invented, since regular Pilates consists of human beings working out on the floor, whereas this gives a person thousands of dollars worth of apparatus to insert between the floor and one’s body. In addition, we are sometimes given a large, hollow, padded box to place either “long ways” or “short ways” on the board. Since, as well all know now, I am still not clear which way is “long ways” or “short ways.” I watch what other people are doing, and copy them. Other equipment includes the “magic ring,” the “jump board” and “the pole.” I choose to take Reformer classes instead of regular Pilates, because when I tell people I do “Reformer Pilates” they have no idea what I am talking about and so are completely impressed. They assume it is some advanced form of Pilates, known only to Victoria Beckham and other anointed individuals. The exact opposite is true. Reformer means no working on the floor, which is much easier. And, because space is limited due to the size of the machines, it also means much smaller classes, affording either individual attention or, on really good days, some kibitzing among participants that can waste some time. The downside to Reformer is that it costs money in addition to my monthly gym membership. Regular Pilates is included in the membership fee. But I have never given even a thought to regular Pilates, so I keep paying. There is a lovely, older woman in my Reformer class. She is in her eighties and brings her portable oxygen equipment with her. I am not making this up. I like having her in class, because she needs extra time to arrange her oxygen whenever we switch position, and this corresponds exactly with the extra time I need to figure out what the instructor is talking about, since I am usually initially facing the exact opposite way that everyone else is. One day last week, the sweet older woman suggested to me that I take a class called “Body Flow,” which is, like regular Pilates, included in gym membership. She takes Body Flow once a week and Reformer once a week. It works perfectly for her. She said Body Flow allows people to work at their own level. This sold me. First off, I like the phrase “Body Flow.” And it has the added advantage of being something else that others are unfamiliar with when I tell them what I do at the gym. I took the Body Flow class a couple days later. There were about twenty women in the room, whose combined weight equaled one large meal. Our equipment consisted of a mat the thickness of a good quality paper towel. I should add that the sweet older woman wasn’t there. As I came into the gym, I had noticed her in the Reformer room, a bad sign. Aside from two grey-haired women who each looked like when they are not at the gym they are hiking the Appalachian Trail, I was old enough to be everyone else’s mother. The instructor started with the following words: “We have a really, really tough workout planned today! Get ready! We will twist our bodies around in all kinds of ways that human bodies are not meant to twist! This will be brutal!” I scanned the room, Apparently, these words were greeted as positive, since everyone around me looked like hyenas just presented with a fresh zebra kill. The instructor proceeded by throwing out names of positions in rapid-fire manner. Most of them involved animals. To me, everything sounded like “The Down Dirty Dog,” except for the one called either “Ape” or “Gorilla,” which involved bending over from a standing position and placing the entire palms of one’s hands under one’s feet. After awhile, I really wasn’t paying much attention. I sort of slumped down on my mat and wondered why an eighty-something year old woman with portable oxygen equipment would do this to me. Isn’t there some kind of rule that when people get to be a certain age they can’t screw around with your life?
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50 www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist for examiner.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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Time for a Snack
BLOGGER: RENEE FISHER
The inspiration for this column comes to you compliments of my friend Tracy. Tracy is beautiful, svelte, and has a killer sense of humor. It’s tough not to hate her sometimes. But, I’ll get past that and move on. Tracy is a die-hard Gym Rat. She has a trainer, who is a die-hard I’m-Here-For-You-And-To-Save-The-Planet-From-The-Ravages-Of-Junk Food-And-Anything-Else-Worth-Eating Trainer. She, the Trainer, sends her clients helpful emails that will allow them to give up food entirely so they can fit into cute size 00 workout apparel. I go to the gym daily, but I don’t presently have a trainer, and so I’m not receiving trainer emails. I was curious to see what Tracy’s trainer sent her.
The one she sent me this morning was headed: “Fast Facts From Fitness Matters—Poolside Primer.” There’s some really great alliteration going here. I would have made it perfect by saying: “Fast Facts From Fitness Forum…”(or some other F word that I can’t print here). That way there would be five F words and two P words. Cool, huh.
She follows with “Are you ready to put on a bathing suit?” This is not the way to get my attention, since I have been trying to prepare myself for putting on a bathing suit since 1993. I’m still not ready, and I don’t like to be pushed.
Here is the trainer’s suggestion for weight loss: “In order to lose weight, you must consume fewer calories than you expend on any given day.” This is a brilliant suggestion, but flawed: I don’t know how many calories I have expended during the day until the day is over, when it is too late to do anything about it. For example, last week, I had a mini-crisis with my real estate business involving someone not returning a phone call as a deadline rapidly approached. My response, an understandable response I might add, was to eat all of the chocolate we keep at the office for such emergencies. It was not until the day was over that I realized (too late, of course) that I had not run to New Jersey and back during the day, which would have used up most of the calories I had consumed.
The Trainer provides a handy chart, showing a gradual decline from “Very Hungry” (starving/desperate) all the way to “Much Too Full” (stuffed). She advises that people should live somewhere in the middle, in the “desirable range” of “Moderately Hungry” to “Mildly Full.” I have never, to my knowledge, visited this interesting, and desired, middle range. When I get hungry, I go immediately to “Red Alert You Will Perish If You Do Not Eat Immediately Very Hungry.” And, since our culture has conveniently provided me with food on virtually every street corner, I can leap to “Why On Earth Did I Eat That Stupid Thing I Am Much Too Full” in the time it takes me to park my car, run into a Seven-11, get back into my car and start plowing into whatever I purchased.
Following this on the email is the extremely helpful statement: “The really important question to ask yourself before you eat anything is ‘Am I really hungry?’ Tune in to the physical sensations you’re experiencing. Rate your hunger on the Hunger/Fullness Scale. If you aren’t really hungry, what else may be going on? You may be eating in response to emotions or stress.” I have done this many times. But, by the time I have completed this extremely valuable analysis of my entire life as it impacts on my need for food at that particular moment in time, the bag of chocolate covered pretzels or pint of coffee Haagen-Dazs or large package of those yummy little chocolate covered donettes are a mere memory.
The trainer asks, “Ever notice that when you’re really stressed, you tend to crave comfort foods that are high in fat or sugar?” Yes, I have actually noticed that, usually at that same aforementioned point in time when I am staring into the empty ice cream carton or candy wrapper or cookie box.
The trainer then informs us that Serotonin, Cortisol, and Neuropeptide Y are the three hormones that play a role in why we eat. They are sort of the “Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” of the diet and hormone world. I won’t say anything more about these, since they don’t come in a chocolate-covered edible version and so are really boring to talk about.
Come to think of it, I’m bored thinking about any of this. Time for a snack.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50 www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist for examiner.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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Sex and the Sixty: The Date
Blogger: Renee Fisher
Before reading, if you haven’t read the first three blogs in the series, you can click the links below:
Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating
Sex and the Sixty: Susan Gets Online
Sex and the Sixty: Not a Good Match
Sex and the Sixty: The Coffee Shop
When my friend Susan goes on actual dates, she does exactly the same things that most people do. She goes out to dinner. She goes to the movies. She goes to female impersonator shows. But somehow, the end result always seems to veer off course.
Sometimes, she and the guy never even make it to the actual date. On one occasion, she and her date planned a picnic. They would meet in the parking lot near the picnic area. They had decided that they would each bring food. Susan was to bring the wine; her date was to bring an assortment of cheeses and crackers. A romantic first date was anticipated by Susan. Subsequent events would make her less optimistic. Her date was late, and then, when he finally arrived, she watched him circle the parking lot for about five minutes before he finally parked the car.
When he did finally did pull into a parking space and Susan came over to his car, she asked him if there was a problem. He said there was no problem, but he immediately complained about the day being so warm and his wanting a soda during the drive and stopping at a 7-11 to get one, but not being willing to spend $1.50. Susan then told him that she had wanted to call him to see why he was late, but she didn’t have his cell number. He told her he didn’t own a cell phone because they were too expensive.
They then walked to what Susan described as “the edge a cliff” (Susan doesn’t get into parks very often). Susan carried a bottle of wine and two glasses. She noticed that her date didn’t seem to be carrying anything.
By now, she was adding up all the negatives of the situation and deciding that she really just wanted to go home. She told him she wasn’t feeling well, and decided to pass on the “picnic.” Her date expressed concern and asked her if she wanted to just go back to his car, sit and eat the crackers and two slices of Velveeta that were in his pocket. Susan told him she was allergic to Velveeta and left. She took the bottle of wine home with her and consumed a fair amount of it that evening.
Another favorite of mine (I’m not sure why Susan doesn’t find quite the humor in it that I do), is one that I referred to briefly in a previous column. I will now divulge all the details. Susan and a man planned a movie date at a theater that was located in a shopping mall. By the time they arrived, the theater was packed, and they couldn’t find seats together. Her date rearranged the entire audience by telling them he was going to propose to her and they had to sit together. One of the people who was forced out of her seat was an elderly woman with a walker. She ended up being moved to the first row, and being separated from her companion, all in the name of “love.”
Susan was mortified, but she said nothing. The movie began and after about 30 minutes, Susan’s date announced that he was going to get popcorn. He then disappeared for an hour. Susan considered the possibilities and decided that one of two things had occurred. Either he had a heart attack and the EMT had taken him away, not knowing that he had a date still sitting in the movie. The other possibility was that the elderly woman in the front row had beaten him senseless with her walker.
It turned out that neither of these had occurred. Her date finally returned, loaded with packages. He said he had gone shopping because he didn’t like the movie. He especially needed a new pair of shoes, and luckily, he found a store that had the perfect ones. He then proceeded to dig into his shopping bag to show her. Susan was so stunned, she didn’t say a word. When the movie ended, she walked to the front of the theater to try to find the elderly woman and ask her if she could borrow her walker for a moment. But the woman had already left.
I will explore more of Susan’s antics in subsequent postings. Luckily for you and me, if not for Susan, there seems to be a never-ending supply.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50 www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist for examiner.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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Sex and the Sixty: The Coffee Shop
BLOGGER: RENEE FISHER
Before reading, if you haven’t read the first three blogs in the series, you can click the links below:
Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating
Sex and the Sixty: Susan Gets Online
Sex and the Sixty: Not a Good Match
When Susan agreed to my rules about coffee only/60 minute maximum, she decided it would be a good idea to knock out (well, not literally) as many men as possible on a daily basis, and thus began setting up two coffee dates per weekend day, one per hour. The venue was a local bagel bakery in a crowded suburb of DC.
On one especially lucrative day, Susan managed to schedule three men, back-to-back. She set up a 10:00 a.m. date, went in, got a cup of coffee, sat innocently at the table in a bright chartreuse shirt (easily identifiable so that no man would ever mistake another woman for her), and waited for her date. Enter Date #1. He found her, they chatted. After approximately 50 minutes, she walked him out the door, said good-bye in the parking lot and then headed back into the bagel place.
She then touched up her lipstick, rid herself of the cup of coffee, and checked to make sure her mascara was still in place. I’m not sure why Susan felt that the act of drinking coffee would damage her mascara, unless the coffee were so hot as to make her make up evaporate, in which case, it would also have been suitable material for a lawsuit.
She then procured another cup of coffee and waited for her next victim (oops, date). Date #2 entered, and he and Susan went through the same scenario. In 45-50 minutes, Date #2 was out the door. For her third date, Susan re-entered the bagel bakery, and she was handed her third cup of coffee. As she walked away from the counter to pay for it, she overheard one of the cashiers whisper to another cashier “Ah, here comes the Bagel Hooker again.”
I can relate to this. For a couple years before I started dating my second husband, I met all of my internet dates at a diner that was directly across the street from my office. That way, I could, at whatever moment I desired, announce, “Wow, gotta get back to the office!” Unlike Susan, I didn’t schedule dates back-to-back. But Susan has always been much more efficient than I was about men.
Unlike a coffee or bagel shop, this diner had a hostess who would seat people. Each week I had one or two meetings with men. Each time I would say to the hostess, “I’m meeting a man here but I don’t know exactly what he looks like.” Then, after an hour, we would leave together. After several weeks, I noticed that whenever I came into the diner, the employees would stop what they were doing, watch me, and shake their heads knowingly.
Then one morning, I met my friend Crazy Debbie for breakfast at the diner. Debbie is nothing if not memorable. It was a weekend morning, and the diner was very crowded. I arrived first and got a booth at the far end of the room. About ten minutes later, Debbie swept into the diner wearing a nightgown, fur boots, and a tiara. She had a purple oval painted on her forehead. When the hostess asked if she could help her, Debbie replied in a very loud voice, “I’m meeting my lover here!” scanned the room, located me, pointed in my direction and announced, “And there she is!”
From that moment on, I morphed from a mere call girl into a genuine celebrity in the eyes of the diner staff.
I think I’ve covered all bases now leading up to relating the actual live meetings between Susan and Her Men. That, depending on how long this friendship lasts at this point, will await that time until either Susan accumulates more stories or until she remembers the ones that were so traumatic that she has temporarily blocked them from her memory.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50 www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist for examiner.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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Sex and the Sixty: Not a Good Match
BLOGGER: RENEE FISHER
If you haven’t read the first two blogs in the series, you can click the links below:
Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating
Sex and the Sixty: Susan Gets Online
After my friend Susan is contacted by men on various computer dating sites, and, after she continues to communicate with them via personal email and phone calls, she is able to eliminate most of them as not a good match for her. “Not a good match” may mean various things: One of the categories of “not-a-good-match” men include those who send her photos of their genitals. Susan assures me that this has happened on more than one occasion. I didn’t ask her if they were Glamour Shots or just candid. A second category that I have mentioned before are those who have yet to master the art of “spell check” on the computer. Here’s the most recent example, caps included:
YEP YOU ARE A LIVE WITH THE CHEESE AND CRACKERS YOU NEE WINE AND I WORK FOR A IMPORTER OF FINE FRENCH ARGENTINA AND SPANISH WINE I BE A GREAT PERSON TO GET TO KNOW
Another category includes men who have small children/pets/ex-wives (note: The children are small, but the pets and ex-wives can be any size) who take up most of their time. One man told Susan he had to go to his ex-wife’s house on a regular basis to mow the lawn. Unless he was destitute and worked out handyman/lawn services with the judge as a substitute for financial support, I’m thinking maybe he wasn’t quite ready to move on. Another had to end all dates by 8PM so he could go home and take care of his dog. About the only women he could develop a relationship with would be the ones who worked the night shift. A fourth category includes men who have other considerations that should preclude them from entering the dating world (or any other world, for that matter). One man told Susan he had no teeth and said that his son told him it might be a good idea to wait until he had his dentures before venturing out into the dating scene. Another man told Susan he was separated, and, when she asked him further, he revealed that “separated” meant that he was living in DC during the week and going home on weekends but had neglected to tell his wife that he considered himself “separated during his week in DC”) and then he couldn’t understand why Susan didn’t want to date someone who could have him all to herself all week long. If a man isn’t eliminated by any of the above circumstances, Susan usually agrees to meet him for coffee. She used to meet men for dinner, but I got really tired of hearing about four hour meetings, since the length of time usually had nothing to do with the quality of the date or the intention of either Susan or the man in question to ever get together again. The length of the meeting had more to do with Susan’s uncanny ability to have an hours- long conversation with anybody, including, in a pinch, inanimate objects. Because of this, I set ground rules for her: one hour at Starbucks or another place that serves coffee. Not a minute longer. Susan agreed, but she still came up with really creative ways to foil my best efforts. In the next episode, we will explore some of these.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50 www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist for examiner.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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Sex and the Sixty: Susan Gets Online
BLOGGER: RENEE FISHER
Click here to read the first blog in the Sex in the Sixty Series – Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating
For those skeptics who might be thinking that my friend Susan’s poor results are because she hasn’t put enough of an effort into online dating, rest assured that she has been on most internet dating sites since the very first one (CaveMatch.com). She has only excluded the ones that will result in the FBI confiscating her computer. Both eHarmony and chemistry.com have now told her they can do nothing more for her unless she “expands her search area.” For Susan, this would mean either searching for men who are younger than her son, older than a Civil War veteran, or who are currently incarcerated.
After Susan is initially contacted by men on the various sites, she usually emails back and forth with them, using her personal email. Sometimes a phone call or two is part of the scenario.
One man told her he lived on a boat and wrote a long email explaining that he lived with a gorgeous 18 year old Dane. Susan assumed he was talking about a dog. He wasn’t. Another man spent a lot of time writing to her about his fishing trip. About the only fishing trip that ever held my attention for any length of time was the one in “Deliverance,” and this man’s email was longer than the “Deliverance” screenplay.
Susan sends me some of the emails that she gets. These are mostly from men who don’t have spell check on their computers:
“…let,s see,are there really any woman out there that are looking for true love, or are you all stell way to picky…”
“…she be my best friend, loving, caring, faithfull, understanding,be d/d free, clean about her self…”
“…i,m a BIG redskins fan, and have been sents 1969…”
One man, who seemed like a good prospect and who had a fair command of the English language, was very anxious to meet her in person. A coffee date was arranged for the following weekend, and each day, he would tell Susan how he couldn’t wait for their meeting. Then, a couple days before the weekend, he sent an email saying,
“I think it would be best if I canceled this Sunday…On Tuesday this week – it seems like a month ago – I met someone else online. We’ve yet to meet in person…but we spoke on the phone for an hour and a half – till her battery went dead….I’m amazed at how far, and how fast things have progressed. Maybe we’ve each found the person we’re both looking for…the degree of emotional closeness has developed very fast. Besides, I’m not good at trying to date two women at the same time. So, I sincerely wish you the best. I continued talking to you about meeting because there was a certain momentum there. I really was eager to meet you in person.”
I asked Susan what the “momentum” was all about and why she thought his momentum with the other woman trumped hers. All Susan could think of was that the other woman’s momentum was larger than hers.
Susan still has a lot of emails to sift through (something like 29 at last count), and I’ll be curious to see what she comes up with. I’ve suggested some ground rules for her when she meets guys, like only meeting for coffee and limiting the meeting to one hour. I figured that would minimize the damage. As we’ll see in the next posting, I was wrong. Very,very wrong.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist forexaminer.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating
BLOGGER: RENEE FISHER
My friend Susan has had such a long, varied and rocky career as a dating single, that I, as one of her closest and dearest friends, listen to her tragic stories, and, as the caring, compassionate person I am, laugh myself sick.
It’s tough not to. Susan seems to attract a lot of really interesting and unique men. Some of them have “handles” that conjure up visions that make me a bit queasy:
pistolhead
riding cowboy
katlicker
dixiekraut
pistolpete
swabjock
Now for the actual words:
“I’m 62 but still active…”
Is he saying he is still sexually active or that he still has the ability to get out of bed in the morning?
“I haven’t been with a woman in eight years.”
If someone wrote that to me, I would immediately consult an attorney to find out which criminal offenses would result in an eight year prison term.
“Do ya judge the book by the appearance of the cover, or do ya open the cover to find out if the table of contents captures and peaks your interest enough to read more?”
Actually, I like to scan the index first, then check out the footnotes. Sometimes, I read the jacket, but other times I flip right to the author’s biography at the end…
This one is from “Looking For Busty”: “I am an older, independent, very safe, straight man in good shape and I like very much the younger woman who is busty, local and in very good shape for extra-curricular activities.”
Hey LFB, there are about 10,000 other guys waiting in line for her also. Good luck.
“I am looking for one woman, not two or more…”
I’m wondering about a person who has to clarify this. Has he had negative experiences with trying to find a soul mate and instead being tricked into having group sex?
“I am a very outgoing person and I always see the glass as half full. I’ve been told that I have a very humorist personality.”
This is also called the “Will Rogers Syndrome.”
“I’d like to volunteer this; I look and act a lot younger than I actually am.”
I’d like to volunteer this: 95% of people over the age of 45 would probably write exactly the same thing about themselves. The other 5% would use capital letters when they write the words “a lot.”
A recent poem Susan received had these lines hidden among all the others that professed undying love:
“When someone is willing to do without,
So your life is complete”
This would stop me in my tracks. This guy is either Bernie Madoff writing from his North Carolina jail cell or a man looking for someone to donate a kidney.
Susan was really excited when I told her I would write columns about her attempts at internet dating.
“You can be my blind author!” she exclaimed.
“I think you meant ‘ghost writer’,” I said.
Oh boy, are we going to have fun with this one.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist forexaminer.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
To receive updates from ImagineAge, enter your email in the “subscribe” box on the left side of the screen. Your email will NOT be sold!
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SPANX
BLOGGER: RENEE FISHER
I bought a lovely dress to wear to my son’s wedding last September. I had to wear Spanx with this dress. Most people know about Spanx. I know about it because my former best friend Jean became a model, dumped me and now Spanx is her best friend. I also know about it because the 5’9” Hollywood celebs who weigh 95 lbs but who have “no eating disorder of any kind whatsoever under any circumstances uh uh no way,” all say they wear Spanx under their size 000 (then altered down) dresses.
All of this instilled in me a Spanx Anxiety Attack. First off, you could make Spanx out of steel-infused nuclear polymer and I still wouldn’t look like those people in the magazines. Several years ago, I went to Macys and tried on a pair of Spanx. Sure enough, my belly totally disappeared, as promised, but I immediately developed a midriff bulge that went all the way up to my neck.
When I got home from London, I went to Nordstrom. I brought the dress with me to the store. Not knowing which particular body area would be in crisis mode at the time, I gathered up all the available styles of Spanx they had. The only one I didn’t choose was the one with long legs. This was, after all, a knee length dress, and while the Spanx would make my legs look great, I wasn’t sure how attractive it would be to appear to be wearing a wet suit.
The nice salesgirl led me to a dressing room and unlocked the door for me, assuring absolute privacy and protecting the general public from mistakenly entering my dressing room and seeing what a 62 year old woman looks like, sans bra, doing a St Vitus Dance in front of a three-way mirror while trying to pull on a rubberized garment .
OK, let’s discuss. I start with a warning: The following might be too graphic for small children and too emotionally damaging for younger women who fear the aging process. The three-way mirror may be my friend (and I emphasize the word “may”) once I have completed putting on my clothing, but it is not something I enjoy when I am struggling to encase my torso in a space age tube of fabric. The first one I tried on had no built in bra—the Girls got so smashed down that it took me several minutes to locate them.
Another style had a bra (hallelujah!) but stopped a few inches past my waist. The moment I put it on, it started to roll up. I was sure that it would be at my breasts by the end of the ceremony and up to my neck by the time we made it to the reception. Subsequent styles had various other characteristics that didn’t work (don’t ask). I finally had to admit that no style, no matter how uplifting, how packed with tight space age polymer, how much coverage it afforded, could turn back the clock to those glorious tiny bikini days.
I chose the best two and marched out twice to show my husband who had been patiently waiting just outside the entrance to the dressing rooms. I let him choose the one he thought looked best with the dress; he preferred the one that was made like a leotard. I paid the $85, and, while the salesgirl was ringing up the purchase, thought for $85 I should be able to pay someone to stand in for me in the wedding photos.
“I’m really discouraged,” I told my husband as we exited into the mall. “What happened to my body?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “but if you find yours, look for mine as well.”
On the day of my son’s wedding, I put on the Spanx and noticed for the first time that the garment seemed to be missing a critical opening. Without this critical opening, I would have to take my dress off and remove the Spanx entirely in order to use the rest room. Basically, I would have to be naked. As this seemed an item entirely too significant to have passed Quality Control, I searched again. Sure enough, there was an opening, but it was so small and constructed in such a strange way that it would have required an accompanying video to explain its use.
I was fine during the ceremony. But, the minute we arrived at the reception, I had to use the rest room. I quickly calculated how long the Mother of the Groom would be required to be at the reception, and the answer was considerably longer than I would be able to contain myself. There was no getting around it: I headed for the rest room.
I decided to be cool, calm, rational, and methodical. That plan lasted about five seconds. The rest of the time I spent contorting myself so as not to wet my Pale Grey Mother of the Groom Dress Constructed Of That Kind of Fabric That Shows Every Single Drop of Anything That Could Possibly Get On It. Had I failed, I would have had to spend the entire reception in the bathroom stall and have food delivered to me under the stall door.
The wedding reception was fabulous, and, on my next trip to the rest room I surrendered and did what I had tried to avoid doing during the first trip. I’m not sure what the other women in the rest room thought to see a pile of clothing on the stall floor. I suspect that if I showed the Spanx to my husband he would have said, “Oh, you did this incorrectly,” or something like that, with that same voice he uses when he says, “You pushed the wrong button on the printer,” or “You were holding the remote backward (or upside down or sideways).” I will never ask him—I simply refuse to have a man explain my undergarments to me. Instead, I will go on a diet to lose ten pounds and never wear the Spanx again. When that fails, I will go to my seamstress and have her alter the Spanx.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50 www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist for examiner.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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