Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri
Katy is represented by
Greg Johnson at
WordServe Literary
Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net
Recent Posts
- Try
- Becoming Brenda Starr
- Off Beat
- Scattered
- That’s It
- So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What?
- The Spoon
- Sciatica
- Sweetheart
- A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose
- However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time
- After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices.
- As with everything in life, balance is key.
- Slow down, you move too fast…
- Yeah, I know. I have issues.
Syndicate
E me at katy @ ngenius.com
A New Girdle In Town
Wow! I just got home from Dallas. The national writers group I belong to (American Christian Fiction Writers) is growing enormously. I think someone said we had 300 attendees at the annual conference last year, and 500 this year!
It’s hard not to notice that the prospective novelists out there in wannabe land are skewing ever younger. And thinner. Dear Lord, there are some cute young things who’ll be in wrist braces before they know it!
In the meantime, the one thing they’re NOT in is girdles, because—God bless their little pea-pickin’ hearts—they don’t need to be.
Then there’s me. And not only me, either. I have a bunch of middle-aged compadres who compadred notes after the Awards Banquet and Ginormous Gala Event last night at the Marriott Quorum.
One of my best buds had to be THRILLED with an award she’d just won, but when I ran up to congratulate her, she raised her hands to stop me from hugging.
“Don’t touch me or I’ll pop,” she said, barely able to smile.
“But…you won…” I said.
“Katy, have you ever worn a….?” And then she named a brand of girdle that’s all the rage and VERY pricey. It rhymes with Thanks, which is the word I THOUGHT she’d say when I congratulated her.
“I bought one,” I admitted. “For my daughter’s wedding, to wear under a very fitted dress.”
Her cheeks looked awfully puffy and her eyes took on a bit of an overripe, jaundiced tint as she said, “What happened?”
“I tried it out in advance one day. I thought I’d give it an hour, to see if I could handle it through a reception with dancing and all. I looked DANG good, too. Of course, the EMTs cut it off of me when they did the EKG and hooked me up to the ventilator.”
“NO!!!”
“But this isn’t about me,” I said, sensing she just wasn’t her usual, moveable self. “Are you OK?”
“Did you know that all your excess thigh can be forced by Spandex into your ankles?”
She lifted her skirt. It wasn’t pretty. But at least her ankles matched her brightly-hued outfit.
“THAT can’t be good,” I said. “How about…um…the rest of you?”
“This thing came up so high, it almost met the bottom of my bra,” she said. “So there was this little flap of fat, but not too bad, between my bra and the girdle. It didn’t show under my top, and I thought I looked so thin. Glamorous, really…..”
Let me just say for the record that even as she spoke, she looked more regal than ever, a beautiful woman in every way. It looked to me, though, like she was breaking out in a red, prickly rash—perhaps an allergic reaction to elastic?—and I thought about running into the gift shop for a package of Benedryl.
The rash turned out to be glitter, but I wasn’t dissuaded from noticing the red streaks rising up her neck, signs of unhealthy constriction, if you asked me. Or maybe even blood poisoning, but hey. I’m no doctor.
“Well, a little roll of fat isn’t the worst thing,” I said, trying to be diplomatic but honestly, having a heck of a time.
“I know,” she answered. “But right when I got called to receive my award, I realized something strange—something dreadful—had happened.”
“You can tell me, girlfriend.” I reached out to pat her upper arm but she stopped me cold.
“One poke, Katy. That’s all it will take.”
I pulled back with more than an inkling of awe and yes…respect. “So what…happened?”
“It rolled, that’s what. The contraption started on its downward spiral from up around my bra, avalanching its way clear down to my waist. By the time I went up to the podium, I was fatter than before I put the thing on. Not just in the front, either. Back fat, too, baby.”
“Are you OK…now?” I asked.
“I will be,” she said, “if this thing has a money-back guarantee and my inhaler holds out.”
She finally let me hug one of her fingers, one that still had some flesh tones to it and didn’t need to have the wedding rings surgically removed. I thought her finger had remarkable range-of-motion, considering.
“So…congratulations?” I said.
“Aw…you’re sweet,” she answered, nearly able to smile despite the swelling. “But if you breathe a word of this, I’m gonna have to hurt you.”
- What? Was it something I said????
Posted by Katy on 09/24/07 at 06:29 AM
- This is a hoot! It's happened to me a few times, so I can relate. Glad you had a good time!
Posted by Suzan on 09/24/07 at 12:00 PM
- so...would this post be considered "breathing a word"? ;)
(and i'm glad you had a good time, too katy!)Posted by lisa on 09/24/07 at 10:38 PM - Suzan--I think there were a whole group of new-generation girdle wearers who were a tad let down. ;) Wish you'd been there to share our angst, and to receive your award for A Circle Game! I am proud of you....
lisa--As long as I don't breathe the specific word of her name, I think I'm good. Besides, I ran it by her and she laughed. In addition, this experience MAY be a composite one of hers, mine, and Erma Bombeck's. It's hard to say.... :)Posted by Katy on 09/25/07 at 09:10 AM - Hilarious! I hope she made it out alive.
Posted by Sally Bradley on 10/05/07 at 10:01 AM
