Tight Squeeze (Part 2, an early outing)

This is part 3 of my drab to fab.  If you'd like to know the full story you could take a look part 1 Womens best kept secret and part 2 Tight Squeeze part one.  And remember:

Drab to Fab is all about making the choice to treat ourselves well, so that we feel good.

If we aim to treat ourselves well, to nurture ourselves, to treat ourselves kindly, we can feel fab, instead of drab.
Simple as that really.

I suspect I may have been the butt of a very cruel joke! (Well, to be more precise, my butt was the butt of a cruel joke).


All in the name of research, and so that I wasn't entirely talking though my arse, (and believe me, THAT was effectively bound AND gagged for the duration!), I shelled out the best part of thirty quid, (and yes, that may well become a recurring theme given that for the same money I could have bought myself something sexy from the Victoria's Secrets Juliet range) on something that looked remarkable similar to that prescribed as suitable wear for for gentlemen in the Bath Corporation official bathing dress code of 1737!!

“It is Ordered Established and Decreed by this Corporation that no Male person above the age of ten years shall at any time hereafter go into any Bath or Baths within this City by day or by night without a Pair of Drawers and a Waistcoat on their bodies”

Well, I drew the line at a waistcoat but there was no doubt about it, I was wearing a pair of DRAWERS!

I'd decided to give the pants a trial run before wearing them on an actual date and I do have to admit they did shave a couple of inches off my waist and hips. What I didn't realise (until I caught sight of myself in the pub mirror) was that they had apparently transferred it all to my backside!

I now had a bottom your could park a bike in and balance a pint on!

Control pants I discovered are great for the posture. The sort that I had on started above my waist and finished mid thigh. Any attempt to bend and they roll slowly down providing me with my very own built in gastric band!

First of all I tried to sit (without bending) on a low squashy sofa in the aptly named Cosy Club, nothing doing! I bobbed up and down for a while like a demented bird in the mating season, desperately trying to get the damn things to bend with me. In the end I opted to perch (equally birdlike) on a bar stool, legs straight, body erect, hands clutching the sides of the stood so I didn't slip off and land in a heap on the floor. Obviously this made drinking a little difficult and as sucking Merlot through a straw isn't really the sophisticated look I was going for I decided to spend the remainder of the evening upright.

not actually me ;)

As the evening drew on inevitably nature called. Id been aware for the last hour or so that my foot had been swelling up. Now I've had a bit of a problem with this foot for a few weeks. So far my doctor has eliminated gout (or, as I insist he calls it, inflamed arthritis) and a problem with my circulation. Basically, he doesn't know what's wrong with it, so we now just refer to it as 'my fat foot'!

meet fatty

I made my way to the ladies at the first inkling my constricted bladder required emptying. Fortunately the disabled cubicle was free as in order to get the pants off I first has to remove my dress.

It was then I caught sight of my foot!!! It had almost doubled it's size and was turning blue, the damn pants had restricted my blood flow so much my foot was in danger of EXPLODING!!

Now I've done many things in a bar.

Fallen flat on my face, set fire to my hair, had my hair set on fire by someone else, perched on a bar stool in Amsterdam with my leg behind my head and  laid on a bar in Salisbury having cocktail syrup poured into my mouth to name just a few but I was buggered if I was going to splatter everyone with my exploding digets!

Experiment over! I rolled the bloody things off and stuffed them in my bag, I was going COMMANDO!

I was just heaving a sigh of relief when there was a thunderous banging on the cubicle door and desperate pleas for me to open up. As I did I was almost knocked sideways by a fraught looking woman who appeared to be in some considerable pain. Not wanting to leave a fellow damsel in distress (and being a nosy kind of person) I hung around to see if I could help.

Much cussing and swearing was audible from the cubicle (a few words Id not heard before too!). Bastard! Fucker!!! I HATE you!! I heard her say in a voice so filled with venom I was almost too scared to ask.

Men? I enquired sympathetically when she emerged a few minutes later. Sodding control pants she sobbed flinging the offending article on the floor (and, for good measure, stamping on it!).

The poor woman had only opted for the fully boned, super duper, burlesque style (with added flappy bits to reduce VPL). She had also made the mistake of drinking a glass or two of fizz!

Now that's just downright DANGEROUS!!

She had gradually felt herself inflating like a bouncy castle at a children's party and, was terrified that at some point the trapped gasses would find a weakness in the material and propel her across the room like a bullet from a gun. Either that or the pressure on the ridged boning would pierce her ribcage like an involuntary act of Hari Kari in front of the date she'd been trying to impress with her hourglass figure.

Sadly now time was up on the hour glass and all the sand had trickled to the bottom.

We silently contemplated our depleted and deflated figures side by side in the mirror for a few minutes and, (with one of those unspoken agreements you sometimes get with complete strangers), gathered our bags, stuffed the pants in the bin and headed arm in arm for the nearest Pizza Express.