pseudostoops

Oh, you guys.  Do I have a story for you.

(Actually, I should probably say “oh you GIRLS” instead of “oh you guys” because this may be one of those stories where some guys will want to look away.)

Yesterday, I went for my annual lady exam.  It had been almost 18 months since I’d had an annual lady exam, a combination of bad planning and laziness on my part, so I was a little nervous that I was going to get scolded.  I was going to a new doctor, and I wanted to start out on a good foot with her, not with her chiding me for waiting so long between paps.

I got called back to the exam room and a nurse asked me a million questions – no I don’t smoke, yes, I have normal liver function, no I’m not allergic to latex.  Then she tossed me a gown and told me the doctor would be with me shortly.

I have come to the conclusion that I look smaller than I am to some people.  This is generally a fine thing- I certainly don’t MIND if people think I’m a few sizes slimmer than I actually am.  It’s kind of a pain in dressing rooms, when people pretty routinely bring me clothes to try on that are a size I haven’t been since middle school, but you know, no big deal.

Except yesterday, the nurse must have fallen victim to the Myth of the Invisible Yet Actually Quite Sizeable Ass, and tossed me a gown that was LAUGHABLY too small.  The opening was supposed to go to the back and when I put it on, there was not enough fabric to cover my butt while I sat on the table waiting for the doctor.

Not a huge deal, I thought.  After all, doctor is about to go excavating in ladytown, it’s not like she’s never seen a butt before.   So I sat, and I waited.

A few minutes later the doctor came in.  We chatted for a few minutes, and then she told me to scoot down and stirrup up so she could do the pap.

Anyway, doctor told me to scoot, so I started to scoot down to the edge of the exam table when “riiiiiip.”

Oh my god.  My ass has STUCK to the paper on the table.  I tried lifting my butt up to get it unstuck so I could continue scooting.  “Riiiiiiiiiip.”

(Now might be a good time for me to mention that it was 90 degrees and a hundred million percent humidity yesterday.  It was impossible not to be a little sweaty.  And I’d been sitting for about 10 minutes before the doctor came in, bare butt and thighs on the table.  And I don’t like doctors, so I was a little nervous, which was not helping the situation.)

By now the doctor is looking at me curiously, wondering why I have not followed her instructions to scoot and stirrup.

I tried to scoot down a little further, but it was clear I was still stuck.  I reached down to try to reposition the paper and  discovered, to my horror, that huge clumps of the paper lining the table had ripped of and were now stuck to my thighs.  HUGE pieces of paper.  It was like my upper thighs were gift-wrapped.  I reached down to try to pull one off and it shredded in my hands- apparently that stuff is about as strong as toilet paper.

“That’s okay,” the doctor said “everyone sticks a little.  Maybe next time you can ask them to put down a plastic sheet.”

AGH DIE MORTIFICATION.

So for the rest of my exam (and, really, the rest of the day, as the stuff was incredibly, stubbornly sticky) I had tissue paper stuck to my ass and thighs.  Glamorous! Is it any wonder I go 18 months between lady doctor appointments?

Once, when I was about 15, my mother told me I could not leave the house like that because I looked like a tramp.

Yes, she actually said tramp.  And my face immediately crumpled and I could tell that she felt bad, that it was an unfortunate word choice that conveyed a malice she didn’t feel, but I was 15 and angry and wounded and man, I made her feel that regret for DAYS afterwards, such was my fury.

The cause of this dramatic mother-daughter fallout was a jumper.  Yes, a jumper.  As in, the kind of dress you wear over a turtleneck.  I believe this particular jumper even featured an argyle print.  (I know! Trampy!)  Specifically, the jumper was short- miniskirt short- and my mother thought that it was far too short to wear out of the house.  (Dear Mom:  I’ve seen pictures of you in the 60s.  You are fooling NO ONE with your sudden fondness for demure hemlines.)

This is one of the annoying things about being a tall girl- clothes are always too effing short.  (I know, grass is always greener, who am I to complain etc etc, but I say this: short people, you can always have your clothes altered to make them shorter.  Taking them to the tailor to make them longer? Not so much.)  Pants always hover two inches off the ground, prompting flood jokes.  Coat sleeves are too short.  Blouse sleeves are too short.  Skirts are a constant problem, and forget about finding a floor length dress that actually reaches the floor.  It is so, so much better than it used to be- thank you Gap and Jcrew for catching on to tall sizing and saving me from buying all my pants in the mens section like I did in high school- but there has not been the same kind of industry adoption of tall lengths for skirts.  At most stores, there is one length of skirt, and if you are a tall girl, it just means more leg is showing.  Sometimes, this problem is truly ridiculous- I tried on the cutest little dress at Old Navy the other day, then realized that if I even leaned over to scratch my knee the whole world would be able to see my underpants, so back on the rack it went.

After the Dramatic Jumper Incident of 1993, I have always been a little skittish about hemlines.  Yeah, I know, Ally McBeal made the miniskirt suit look normal, but I am very conscious of not wanting to show too much (very very pasty white) leg at the office.  I especially fear rear slits in skirts, since they often seem to toe the line between “nice design element” and “inadvertent peephole into a very private region”.

So help me, internet.  Today was day one million of what I’m calling the “neverending negotiations that will never end ever oh my god” deal at my work, and I have worn all the suits I own at least twice, so today I pulled a black dress out of the closet, threw a gray jacket over it, and called it a suit.  Trouble was, when I got to work, this is what I noticed:

Uh, so that’s, um,  kind of a lot of knee I’m showing there.

I swear, when I stand up, this dress hits just above the kneecap.  I do not know what is going on when I sit down.  (I am choosing not to believe that it has anything to do with the size of my ass when sitting and the resultant displacement of fabric.  I’m not good at physics.)

So I’d ask my mom what she thinks, but (a) I don’t live with her anymore, so she’s not available, and (b) I’m not sure my psyche could take another “tramp” comment, so I ask you, oh wise and wonderful internet:  is this dress, worn with a very conservative jacket, which comes to the knee when standing, too short for the office?

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I once had a very interesting conversation with a high-powered female executive who was sharing what she called “tricks of the trade.”  She had a bunch of tips for us (I was with a group of young women professionals) about how to assert our authority and manage situations without seeming too “harsh” or “bossy” or “mean.”

Setting aside for the moment the (huge! looming! conversation-worthy, except I don’t have the time this morning to get into it!) question about the extent to which women feel the need to “soften” their approach in professional settings where men can be big bumbling rude jerkfaces and people will respect them for their “toughness,” there was one tip that I found particularly funny.  She said that she often takes off her watch and slips it into her bag before she goes into a room to run an important meeting.

“That way,” she said, “when I know that the conversation is going on too long and we have to move things along quicky, I can say ‘I’m sorry, I forgot my watch today, can someone tell me the time?’ And then when someone tells me, I can say ‘Oh goodness, it’s later than I thought, we’d really better move this along.’”

It never occured to me that the mere act of noting the time and trying to keep a meeting moving could be perceived as being “pushy,” but this woman SWORE by this trick.  “I could never do that, even if I thought it was useful,” I remember thinking at the time, “because I start to twitch and look reflexively at my wrist every 30 seconds when I’m not wearing a watch.”

Well today, like it or not, I get to test that trick.  Big meeting starting shortly, and my watch is hanging out contentedly on my dresser at home, where I forgot to put it back on after my shower this morning.  I’ll let you know how it works.

Am I the only one who gets nervous and twitchy when I forget my watch?  Please tell me I’m not the only one…

Last night, watching a little t.v., a public service announcement comes on.  You’re familiar with the genre:  “mom, talk to me about x.  If you don’t, who will?”  and “I might act embarrassed or say that I don’t want to talk about it, but I’ll listen.”  And I was sort of only half watching, expecting it to end with a “Parents: the anti-drug,” when instead I heard “so parents, talk to your children about sex, and tell them  they should wait until they’re married.  They’ll listen,” and then a flash to a website ending in .gov, where parents could go for more information.  (In case my description isn’t capturing it for you, here’s the video.)

PSA’s telling parents how to help their kids stay away from drugs?  Obviously.  Even a PSA helping parents broach the topic of sex with their kids, how to tell them to wait until they’re ready?  Fine.  But the government telling parents that the right way to parent is to tell their kids to wait until they’re married to have sex?  (To say nothing of the implicit heterosexual assumptions that accompany that particular message?) It irks me no end.

Ten years ago, after much begging, cajoling, pouting, and crying, my parents let me go away for the weekend with my friends to Michigan. We had just graduated high school and were desperate to go be off on our own, unable to wait the two months until we went off to our various colleges to try living without our parents.

We were a group of boys and girls then, and this co-ed sleepover aspect was doubtless a big part of what made my parents so apprehensive about giving me permission to go. Ultimately, they realized that 12 boys and girls sleeping in sleeping bags in one communal living room was about the worst place for teenage sex, so they finally caved.

I got a horrible sunburn; the worst I’ve ever had. My then-crush threw my nice new sunglasses in the lake and was mad at me for being mad at him when we couldn’t find them. Princess’s brother had bought us pre-mixed strawberry daquiris in freezer pouches, and when we split the six pouches between the 12 of us, Murphy took two sips and asked, “Am I drunk yet?” It was an awesome time, an exhilarating freedom that I can still vividly remember a decade later.

Three years ago, the core group of girls from that trip decided to revive the tradition, and ever since we’ve had a girls weekend in Michigan every year. Horty flies out from Seattle, bless her heart, Murphy comes in from New York, and the rest of us, who are all based in Chicago, pile into cars with loads of beach crap and games and wine and tequila and head to Murphy’s grandparents house in Michigan.

So it was that this weekend I piled myself into Princess’s little Subaru and drove to the Third Annual Girls Weekend in Michigan. We drank too much wine, cooed over Horty’s newly-pregnant belly, skewered marshmallows on sticks and roasted them, and marveled that we’ve managed to keep alive, through six different colleges, three different grad schools, six totally divergent career paths, three marriages, two babies (one in utero) and two cats, this tradition of getting together every year for a weekend.  I’m amazed and blessed to know such an interesting, smart, funny group of women, and we’re all lucky to be able to make this a priority, to preserve these friendships that would be so easy to let fall by the wayside.

Our 10-year high school reunion is scheduled for some time this fall. They’ll rent out a bar, we’ll pay some absurd amount for open bar cocktails and a few hours of awkward chitchat with the people we knew back when- but for me, the real reunion, the one that matters- that happened this weekend.

Imagine yourself getting ready for a Saturday night black tie affair, dressing in a hurry, strapping shoes on and running out the door already a half hour late, getting to the event, and making it half way through your first glass of wine at cocktail hour before you realize you forgot to put on deodorant in your hurry out the door.

What do you do? You excuse yourself, head for the bathroom, and sniff your armpits to see how bad it is. The stress of realizing your gaffe is definitely not helping the situation. You ask your sister if she has, perhaps, brought any perfume in her purse. She hasn’t. You start to imagine an uncomfortable evening spent with arms clamped awkwardly at your sides, wondering if anyone will suspect that the nicely dressed twenty-something girl is the source of that funky smell.

Then you look down at the table and see someone’s abandoned gin and tonic glass, empty except for the lime wedge. Inspiration! You rush to the bar. “Two lemon wedges, please,” you ask, ignoring the puzzled look from the bartender. Back to the bathroom, where you surreptitiously swab your underarms with fresh lemons, pat dry, and rejoin the party, smelling pleasantly of citrus.

Just call me Ms. MacGyver.