You tell me
C’mon, man, tell the truth. Would you wear a girdle under your shirt? Send an email to D.L. Stewart at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com to share your thoughts for consideration for publication. Please include your first and last names and hometown, plus a daytime phone number.
The treadmill’s digital display at the fitness center to which I drag myself three times a week indicated I had walked off 112 calories, which meant I could treat myself to a beer with dinner that night and not gain any weight. Assuming dinner was a tablespoon of tofu and a carrot stick.
But just as I was getting discouraged about my weight-loss program, I happened to glance up at one of the televisions on the wall in front of me and realized I was going about it all wrong.
On the screen was a commercial that proved I was wasting my time and energy trying to make my waist waste away.
All I really needed was a girdle.
The commercial didn’t call it a girdle, of course. It called it a slim-something or other. For $10 it would make my pot belly disappear and attractive women would be coming up to me on the street asking, “Say, aren’t you Matthew McConaughey?”
As a testimonial, the commercial showed a guy who appeared to be within weeks of giving birth to triplets. But then he put on his slim-something or other and, just like that, he didn’t appear to be any further along than seven months.
Girdles for men aren’t really new, of course. Some men have been wearing them for years, claiming to have back problems. Many of them are the same men who decline to take off their T-shirts at the beach because they say they have sensitive skin.
But in recent years, according to a story in The Washington Post, girdles have become “all the rage.”
This although even men who aren’t embarrassed to wear them aren’t secure enough to call them that. Instead, what they’re wearing is “men’s shapewear.” Or “waist eliminators.”
They’re paying $99 for “core precision undershirts.” They’re buying “compression shirts” for $58. “Insta Slim Muscle Tanks” that promise to “flatten your stomach, redefine your chest, eliminate your love handles” for $29.95. SlimTs to make them look firmer with “no diets, no exercise” and “no gym memberships” for $19.95. There are “Mens’ Belly Buster Athletic Supporter Girdles” and “Flashback Butt-Lifting Technology Boxers.”
But as much as I would like to flatten my stomach, eliminate my love handles, redefine my chest or even find my chest, I don’t picture myself going into a store anytime soon and asking for a pair of Flashback Butt-Lifting Technology Boxers.
So I guess I’ll just keep doing what I’ve always done when I see an attractive woman coming my way.
Which is to suck in my gut, hold my breath and hope she doesn’t notice how red my face is getting.
Contact D.L. Stewart at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.
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