Remember when you were a girl kid and you were too old to just pee in the pool? And you swam and swam and swam until you absolutely couldn’t hold it anymore. You started doing the crazy pee dance. You convinced others that you didn’t have to go. Just one more jump in the pool. Oh, no. Get out and get going. You better speed walk to the bathroom. Because everyone knows that you can’t, absolutely cannot, run at a pool. And you should not pee in the pool. If you’re not diapered.

You make it to the bathroom and try to quickly pull down your wet one-piece tangled mess of a swimsuit. Nobody would probably know if you just peed your pants, well, your swimsuit. How embarrassing. Don’t. Only babies do that. You pull yourself together and succeed. Victory. That was a close call. And next, a silent drumroll begins, for the trickiest part of the whole process. No parent or sister teaches you these bathroom smarts. There are no shortcuts. You have to learn this skill set all by yourself. Trial and lots of errors. It’s just you and that swimsuit in the stall. You’re a big girl now. Bend your naked self down and try your best to pull that sopping wet, twisted, too short of a torso, one piece suit back up. Whatever you do, don’t fall down and bonk your head on the door, and fall out of the stall. Someone might know that you’re an amateur. And you also might face plant on the bathroom floor. Ouch and gross. There really should be an attendant, standing outside of the bathroom, handing out Popsicles to every girl who completes this task. High five. Your choice: Strawberry Shortcake, Ice Cream Sandwich or Bombpop?

The wet swimsuit bathroom encounter is a pretty close description to how I feel when I put on those god-awful spanx. Why? Oh why? As if it’s not enough torture to wear high heels, someone had to invent those life sucking undergarments that look like you could throw off your dress and then compete in the MS-150. If only you had your bike and water bottle. Heinous, circulation cutting off biking shorts that absolutely take pleasure in making you not slouch, not eat too much and not breathe deeply. But, the positives, how they make you look all smooth and put together under your dress. No, Spanx. Just no. Spanx can’t talk, but if they could they would say, “Don’t eat. Don’t breathe. Sit up straight. Look like you are firm and tight and comfortable.” On the car ride to the wedding, I wanted to throw mine out of the window. Fifteen minutes in and I couldn’t really think about or talk about anything else. I hate those things. Who doesn’t? Probably just the founder/creator. She has made quite a fortune off of making women everywhere feel uncomfortable. If men had to wear them, I’m pretty convinced that they would never attend weddings.

I regretted drinking anything every time I had to go to the bathroom and shimmy out of those angry high-waisted awkward shorts. The first time I went to the bathroom, I thought I had locked the door. Wrong. A girl walked in on me. AHHHHHH! The closest feeling to having someone walk in on you trying to wrestle down Spanx is having someone walk in on you pumping. Pure humiliation. Acute onset of embarrassment paralysis. Next up, apologies abound from both the intruder and me. Please just close the door. I will be out of here in about ten minutes when I get these situated again.

I’m not too good about keeping secrets, I often come down with diarrhea of the mouth. Oversharing. Overtalking. Filling time and space with too much information. I think I may have told one too many people how much I hated those Spanx. I don’t think I would have passed any etiquette classes with that conversation. I can just see my great Aunt scoffing at me. Biting my nails and talking about my undergarments? Sorry, Auntie. It just made me feel a little better. A little more honest. A little more in control than my spanx.

Even though those spanx were somewhat supporting me, I wanted them to know that I do not support them. Quite the opposite. I’m trying to start some sort of revolution. The more women I talk to that say they don’t like them either, the more I think, this protest is gonna be on the news. Off the chain. “Spanx? No thanks.” I have got to come up with a better chant before I call in the crews. In reality, I think I would be the only one that showed up. Who has time to protest Spanx? I would probably leave my homemade signs at home. Along with the Spanx that I was going to wave around in the air.  I would definitely not be wearing them at the protest.

To all of the wedding friends, and my husband, I’m sorry if I talked too much the other night about my Spanx. And sorry, again, to the girl who walked into the bathroom when I was trying to get them down. I should have just taken them off and tried to squeeze them into the little tampon trashcan next to the toilet. That would really show them how it feels to be all crammed up in too tight of a space. But who am I kidding? I’m sure I’ll be wearing them (and talking about them) the next time I need to get all fanicied up. Or better yet, maybe I will let my husband wear them for a change.