This week I have 3 Christmas parties to go to. For 23 years, back when I was single and skinny, I would have given ANYTHING to have 3 parties to go to. But no, for 23 years I was condemned to nights of Rib Crib Chicken and Cheetos, vodka and gummy worms. I sat munching, watching movies that really sucked, or that I had watched every Christmas for 23 years. Fast-forward to 2010 and I am married, fat, and socially active. What a crock, what a foul trick life has played upon me! I have 3 parties to attend in the next four days…..and I am in a state of panic!

I look in my closet to see what I might be able to wear. All my nice clothes are gone now, because I gave them to Goodwill when I promised myself that once I lost 20 lbs, I would go out and buy some new outfits. I have lost no pounds, but I have bought myself 2 sweatshirts from the men’s department at WalMart. I keep searching through my closet, for the perfect outfit that I know won’t be there. Nothing, not even a crappy red top, never mind anything sparkly. See, this is what happens when you pass 50 and decide you really have always been a hippy at heart. You gladly dispose of anything that looks like Corporate America/Hearts & Bears/Things with words on/Things that your mother gave you. You embrace your inner-self, the flower child, the Aphrodite, the complete slob. I look in my husband’s closet. Damn him, nothing I can borrow like I usually do the rest of the week. It pisses me off that all his stuff still fits him. I smile and make a mental note to start slowly increasing his portion sizes at dinner, so that he will suffer too. What am I going to do?!!!! I ponder this awful dilemma with the first soiree merely hours away! No time to go to the store. Hell, all I would find there would be outfits for people who are single digit sizes (I hate them all).

Here is the plan ladies. Feel free to follow it anytime you need to! The first thing to do in emergency like this is to:-

1. Pour yourself a very strong drink – you will immediately appear to shrink one size.

2. Plaster on a lot of eye make-up and mess up your hair (so that everyone’s attention will be drawn to your head).

3. Pour another drink, this time a little stronger.

4. Find something that will stay done up around your waist (that won’t ping if you sneeze or bend over).

5. Pour another drink (try not to spill it on your skirt).

6. Put on a top that adds color and shows cleavage (the only good thing about having fat bits).

7. Pour another drink and eat a handful of chips.

8. Add a LONG jacket that cover all the goop at the back, your waist line, your arms. By the time your husband/partner comes home to pick you up for the party, you will be so drunk (and thin) that you will turn into a complete flirt (just like the old days at the bars). He will be so completely distracted by this behaviour, that: a. He won’t realize you look like a sausage. b. He won’t realize that the other women at the party don’t. c. He won’t remember what you wore so that you can wear the same outfit for the other 2 parties.

Enjoy any parties you go to Ladies! Jude the Squidgy