Tummy Control

Yesterday I bought a pair of Levi’s with tummy control. It was a milestone. And a defeat.

You know all those commercials about “belly fat?” And maybe you say to yourself, Ew, what a slob, I wouldn’t let that happen to me!

But after a certain age, your tummy appears out of nowhere. You used to worry about your thighs or something, but you never gave a thought to your tummy. When you look down and realize you’re on your way to becoming a sumo wrestler, it’s too late.

So now I still wear the same size but it isn’t the same. I hate it. I can’t wear a fitted t shirt or everyone will know. At home, I can sit on the couch and mourn the rolls of flab, resigned to the fact that they aren’t going anywhere. I perk up at the new ads about Cool Sculpting, a procedure that promises to freeze and evaporate your tummy fat.  If only! I think it would be worth a few thousand to have a  flat stomach again.

And yet, how could you do that, knowing there are starving refugees living in tents without anything? Your flat stomach would be a sin against humanity. So instead of sinning against humanity, I went to try on the new Levi’s.

Sure enough, they hold your tummy in, with an extra layer of something. They look just like regular skinny jeans. Whereas those Not Your Daughter’s jeans are cut for elephants and are super unflattering. I bought the new Levi’s, even though I was horrified that they cost $98. Ninety-eight dollars may be a transgression verging on sin, especially given the stacks of jeans in my closet.

Later at home, I tried on my new jeans. I noticed that they smelled funny. Not funny, but awful. An awful chemical smell that I couldn’t quite identify. So I took off the tags and hand-washed them in cold water. Then I rinsed them with Downy. Then I put them in a warm dryer. When I took them out, they still smelled awful.

I asked my husband to smell them, even though he hates being ordered to smell things. He thought he smelled cleaning fluid.

I’m going to exchange the jeans, unless all the tummy-control Levi’s smell like cleaning fluid, as a punishment for my vanity. Maybe I am double cursed with a tummy roll AND a heightened sensitivity to smell. (see hyperosmia.) But what’s a person supposed to do? Just go around like that and embrace the aging process?

I reject the aging process. I would rather cut off my head than have grey hair. I don’t want to get flappy arms. I don’t want to deal with it at all.

Have you seen Elon Musk’s mother in her new ads for Cover Girl? She’s got the white crew-cut and the dark lipstick, and she smugly declares in her murderous South African accent:

They say at a certain age, you just stop caring. I wonder what age that is.

Complaining about Maye Musk to my sister, who hadn’t seen the ads, I showed her some pictures on my phone and noted that she’s 69 years old. My sister exclaimed, “Is that all? She looks much older!”

I felt a bit better about my tummy fat. I guess as long as I have Elon’s mother, I can carry on. But I still want the jeans.