The politics of panty hose and horoscopes

If there’s one thing I now know for sure, it’s that a woman who rarely wears panty hose should never buy the size of panty hose she thinks will fit. Even if your waist management plan is working well, buy the next size up.
Trust me on this one.
Earlier this week, and just when I was starting to see a sliver of progress in the treadmill bid to a size 10, I blindsided my ego, pulled a groin muscle, and nearly strangled everything below my belly button trying to wedge myself into a too-small pair of demon nylons.
If I’d have had even a shred of sensibility, I would have stopped the tortuous routine just after my feet slid into place in the “sandal toes” and the rest of the contraption slammed to a halt at my calves.
But oh, no. I pulled and plied my lower torso into a Jim Carey contortionist routine—determined that the panty hose chart on the back of the package wasn’t a fib.
Thank heavens the door to my bedroom was shut.
I should have picked the panty hose sized 20 pounds in excess of my own body weight. But, of course, what woman in her right mind does that?
Instead, I fought to get them on, blew a run down one leg before I’d finished, and wore them all day out of spite—even though I was sure that if I bent at the knees, I’d need emergency help.
Then again, maybe if I’d have had the “collective energy of 10 people to weed through all of the tasks at hand” that my weekly horoscope told me I would, I’d have had better luck.
Either they’d have shopped for the right panty hose or five of them could have stretched open the little number I’d bought while the other five dropped me into place.
Needless to say, I’ve boycotted panty hose from my underwear drawer, just as I have the hottest new “back again” trend—leggings. History might repeat itself, but even when leggings were around in the early 1990s, they scared me to death.
Until the day “skinny pants” make piano legs look like what Tyra Banks is walking around on, I’m not buying!
However, let’s get back to the prognosticator’s report. I’ll admit I’m keen on reading my horoscope every week and often—if I try real hard—can find some truth to it in my life.
But not this time.
The only collective energy of 10 people I came across this week manifested themselves in my dog, “Cash,” when—in a matter of minutes—he managed to steal countless valuable tools out of the back of the half-ton truck belonging to the local “Satellite Man.”
That same collective energy also possessed “Ozzie” the cat as he leapt out of said truck when I told him that if he didn’t bail, he’d be on a one-way trip with the “Satellite Man” to the next job location—a remote community far east of town with lots of dogs.
My horoscope also predicted, and rightly so, that my to-do list is a mile long. What else is new? Granted, I’m not the “sit around” kind and if I had to retire from my job tomorrow, I’d never be out of work.
But come to think of it, after Dec. 12, I won’t have to worry about that, either. As far as I can see it, too much to do is the least of my problems. I thrive on a busy life.
What I wonder about these days is if anyone raised an eyebrow as they drove past my property at 7 a.m. recently as I stood in the middle of the field in my pajamas and long underwear, gum rubbers, a lumberjack coat, “bed head” all a’ fury, and wielding a golf club—hot on the trail of the fierce little rodent that was trying to eat my dog.
If someone spotted me standing there in my trendy fashions, I didn’t see what was coming.
Fortunately, neither did the ground hog.