I split the ass of not one but two pair of bottoms

We went on vacation in March - not far away, but away from home, where my kids were happy because there was a pool and a TV, actually 2 TV's - and I discovered that I had outgrown my pants. Now when my kids outgrow their pants I just go to the storage room in the basement, and pull out the bin of "next" clothes, i.e. hand-me-downs, purchased second-hand clothes, or gifts of new clothes. Then I add the current pants to the "outgrown" bin to be passed on to someone else or sold second-hand. But when I outgrow my pants it is a royal pain in the ass, both literally and figuratively.

Please tell me this happens to someone else: your inner thighs rub together and gradually wear out your jeans until you "could read the newspaper through them." That is an expression I am sure I learned from my mother, maybe a carry over from the depression, when you really did wear your pants until they were worn thin, but why read the newspaper? I heard a friend once call it "chub rub" and I say this to myself but try not to say it out loud as it seems very ... I don't know... non-PC - if it is possible to be politically correct or incorrect about your inner thighs. Whatever you call it, that is the only way my pants wear out and leave me needing new ones.

So while we were on vacation, I was spending some time hangin' in my pj's - comfy blue and green flannel pj's that I am sure I bought at Victoria's Secret over 15 years ago - and clearly seemed sexier then. Actually I was wearing the bottoms only as I had to give up on the top a long time ago when the button holes got too lose for the buttons and it was indecent to wear at my in-laws. So, wearing comfy bottoms (and a T-shirt), I straddled the ottoman to one of those ugly fake-leather swivel chairs and sat down. As I sat I heard a huge ripping sound and that was the final straw for my comfy pj bottoms.

And then there were the jeans. Same problem, worn-out inner thighs. I knew I was testing fate when I put them on, as you really could see through the last few threads holding them together. And when I bent over I heard that now-familiar sound. The rip went right from my inner thigh across the back of my buttocks, at about the level I would have made cut-off jeans back in the 70's when I was a "crazy chick" and my thighs were ready for the "we wear shorts shorts, who wears short shorts?" In the fitness and anatomy world we call this the "gluteal fold" but I am not sure if that accurately describes "back there" now. Luckily on this walk with the kids through small-town Ontario, I was wearing a sweatshirt and was able to tie it around my waist to conceal the gaping hole in the ass of my pants!

You do know what that is called don't you? Putting a sweatshirt around your waist is a S.O.F.A. - sweater over fat ass - and it only makes your ass look BIGGER. And my ass was (is) fat and my pants were no longer concealing or containing them (it).

On returning to the big city, I went to my one-and-only store where I buy plus-size clothes and they didn't have any jeans! ANY jeans! What? Was there a run on jeans for some reason? Where did all these jean-shoppers come from? They had had a sale and all the jean stock was purchased by other plus-size women in need of jeans to conceal and contain their asses - at a sale price. They called other stores for me. "Which store is most convenient for you?" I will go anywhere there are jeans in my size. No jeans in the city. "Call in a few weeks as we should have them in stock by then." What am I supposed to do in the meantime? Wear a sofa I guess. Feel like a sofa.

Finally, weeks later we are at the mall and there are jeans in the store, only one style, but who cares! I try on my new jeans and have to REALLY suck in my gut to pull the zipper up. I needed to move up a size in jeans - crap! Despite the apparent re-stocking of jeans, they do not have the next size up - and I wouldn't have bought them if they did - no way, I am not goin' there. So I buy the jeans that ALMOST fit, and swear, then and there, that I am going to start taking better care of myself! I have hit my "tipping point" - and not the tipping-of-the-scale kind of tipping point.

According to Malcolm Gladwell, "The three characteristics [of a tipping point are] - one, contagiousness; two, the fact that little causes can have big effects; and three, that change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment... The name given to that one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at one is the 'Tipping Point.'" Splitting the ass of not one but two pairs of bottoms was my "dramatic moment."

But I also know that there is a contagiousness out there, and we are all tired of struggling with weight, we all know that diets don't work, and every last one of us wants to feel good about ourselves - and our bodies. And this blog is about the fact that little causes can have big effects. We only have to make little changes in our lifestyle - I call them "shifts." Like the passengers of Oceanic flight eight one five, a small shift in our flight path can drastically alter our destination.

A week after purchasing the jeans that ALMOST fit, I was able to zip them up without causing a hernia. Whew!