Vikki Claflin
Kenny and I were window-shopping downtown, and we saw a cute boutique with swimsuits in the window. Notwithstanding the fact that it was barely 60 degrees, it’s also APRIL. In the Pacific Northwest. We could still wake up to snow, people. But Kenny grinned widely and pointed to one impossibly tiny handkerchief on a string and announced, “You’d look great in that! You want to go in and try it on?” Seriously?? “Look at the mannequin.” I said. “Look at me. Now look at the mannequin again. Do you see ANYTHING different about the two of us???” “Well, I’m sure they have bigger sizes.” (Yeah, now I feel better.) “Let’s go in and try one, okay?” You got to love a man who thinks a “bigger size bikini” is going to solve the problem. Sighing, I followed him in.
To Kenny’s delight, the baby salesgirl handed me a bikini. “Come out and let me see, sweetie!” he smiled expectantly. Yeah, no. If the building were on fire and this was what I was wearing, I’d go up in flames before anyone ever saw me in this Kleenex on a string.
The bikini bottom is essentially a thong. So if you’re 12 and built like a tongue depressor, have visible pelvis bones, AND you’ve never given birth, this is for you. (Jake repeatedly tells me I can’t continue to blame him for my “post-baby weight.” He’s 24. Ha. I just reply that when one pushes a schoolbus out of a garage built for a Volkswagon Beetle, one has earned the right to put at least partial weight blame on said schoolbus forever.)
Then there’s the bikini TOP. Two tiny triangles held together by a piece of dental floss, with the support strength to hold up two Chiclets. Puberty pretty much wiped out any hope of me ever wearing a bikini top. On to the “tankini.”
The tankini is a cross between a one-piece and a bikini, but can even more difficult to pull off. It has a bikini-like bottom, with a slightly higher waistline, and a spandex top that bares the midriff. So many, MANY ways this can go wrong on the average boomer.
If you can’t wear (or shouldn’t, but do…and please, stop that) midriff-baring t-shirts with microshorts, you can’t wear a tankini. High-waisted thongs are still THONGS. Unless you’re one of those people who works out 3 or more hours per day and can bounce a quarter off your peaches, thongs are NOT your friend. And tankini tops? Think of your body like a Weeble made out of Play-Doh. What you push IN on one end is going to ooze OUT at another. So that little spandex tshirt/thong combo makes you look like a Chinese Shar Pei stuffed into an ill-fitting tube top. I might as well just slap a big ol’ glittery sticker on my navel that says “I <3 my belly fat.”
By this time, I was done. The salesgirl suggested a one-piece (“And we even have some with skirts for older women!”) Wow. All I wanted was a glass of red wine and a box of Oreos. No amount of reassurance from Kenny or pitching from the silly salesgirl was going to get THIS body back into THOSE hankies.
Working online later that day, I saw a quiz called “Get Swimsuit Ready by Summer!” Hmm. I answered the stupid questions (“Do you prefer vegetables or chocolate as a mid-day snack?”), only to discover that I need to entirely revamp my eating habits, give up wine, and get to the gym right freaking now. Awesome. When I asked the “Personal Online Fitness Coach” if that would get me swimsuit ready by summer, she BURST OUT LAUGHING and replied, “Summer 2016, sweetie!”
My workout today is to stab her through her size 0, 19-year-old, bikini-wearing heart. I feel thinner already.