Old Wives' Tales

Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard of these. Things like, a mayonnaise won’t “take” if it’s that time of the month; chewing gum will take seven years to work its way through your digestive system; eating within one hour of going swimming will cause cramps. Aren’t they silly?

On an unrelated note, I have, in the past 4-6 weeks, lost about 9 pounds. I haven’t started exercising (what kind of silly person would exert themselves in humid weather?), and I haven’t DIEted (sorry KathyR). I think it’s because of summer schedules. See, I am not running errands the way I do during the school year (you know, getting a few things done before it is time to pick up Trixie from school, giving myself way too much time to do those errands, so having time to kill, and—hey, would you look there, a Starbucks! Mochas are not good for one’s figure. We all know that, but what better way to keep yourself occupied when it is 2:40 and your kid gets out at 3:00?

Also, with other people in the house, it is less easy to relieve boredom by eating a handful of chocolate chips (don’t gasp all self-righteously, we all do it [except the Consort, who isn’t “into” chocolate])—because 1) then you’d have to share with the witnesses and 2) you just aren’t as bored when other people are around (plus there’s a little bit of shame involved in there somewhere, I think).

I’m not particularly proud that cutting out coffee drinks and surreptitious snacks will so easily drop 9 pounds from my frame. And, you know, 9 pounds lighter and I’m not into the next lower clothing size. My clothes are all a bit looser, but really, I must have been at the upper edge of my current size before the summer, which is scary to think I was this close >--< to having to move up a size.

There is one unexpected thing though. We all know that when a woman loses weight, she’ll lose it on top first. Skinny women always complain that that happens to them (and we have to stand there and use our best Jedi training to keep our hands still at our sides, rather than up around their scrawny little necks as they bemoan the fact that they are losing the minimal buxomness they had started to enjoy during pregnancy…). Now, I’ve checked, and my bras fit just as well as they did two months ago. What is going on here? This is so unfair. Every time I have planned to think about starting to lose weight, the one constant thought that allows me to think maybe it would be a good idea is that when a woman loses weight, she loses it on top first! And I am here to prove that that is clearly an old wives’ tale (which here means an old tale told by wives, not a tale told by old wives, OK?). The Consort is happy with this turn of events (he stopped buying lottery tickets when I mentioned that I sure would like to use a bit of the splurge money we’d allow ourselves from winnings on an appointment with a plastic surgeon). I am not.