Where Did My Booty Go?

A forty-five year college reunion scheduled for June 25 has resulted in the disappearance of one of my vital body parts.


Since so many of my female classmates in Ripon (WI) College's class of 1966 married guys in the previous year's class; and since we only had about 125 people graduate that year-- the entire school was fewer than 800 --and by the time we were winnowed down by four years of flunk outs, drunk outs and accidental motherhood, the decision was made to hold a joint 65-66 reunion.

One day this past winter I received a message from our Class Agent asking if I would agree to be a co-host or emcee of the reunion dinner. Never one to turn down an opportunity to get in front of a microphone, I enthusiastically agreed.

My next thought went to what it usually does: what the hell am I going to wear? Which automatically triggered my next thought: Omigod, I am too fat to wear anything that will look the least bit alluring with all this gray hair; even if I buy a new outfit it will look matronly and frumpy BECAUSE I AM SO FAT!

There was only one thing left to do. I needed an excuse to call the class agent and back out of the commitment. In fact, maybe I shouldn't go to the reunion at all, I look so old and gigantic. Maybe I shouldn't even go to the grocery store anymore -- damn, I wish Web Van hadn't tanked.

Short of fabricating a monumental lie, something I completely suck at -- lying, that is; I can fabricate with the best of them--I was stuck. Never mind that every single other person at this event would be somewhere between 65-67 years of age. Don't confuse me with the facts that several of us didn't even get to live this long, much less look exactly as we did on graduation day. This was an emergency that required drastic measures.

That very afternoon, I grabbed a neighbor and drove over to the Atlanta Medical Center Wellness facility, where we signed up for the Silver Sneakers fitness program, Aquatic Aerobics classes, and full access to the biggest collection of physical torture machinery I have ever seen under one roof.

Feeling much better, I came back home and turned on the news. While I was preparing to leave again to swing by Burger King to pick up dinner (Yikes!) I heard Valerie Bertinelli say "Have you called Jenny yet? Without allowing myself even a nanosecond to rationalize against it, I picked up the phone and called Jenny. That was 10 weeks ago.

Today's weigh-in should take me just over 20 pounds lost to date, and only 8 more to goal. Oh, I am nothing if not the picture of health. My clothes are starting to look baggy and saggy (great excuse for a bunch of new clothes I can't afford!) and my jaw line has re-surfaced, all sharp and angular. I was on a roll...until I caught a glimpse of my derriere in the window as Coqui (my dog) and I passed the pet shop yesterday.

Actually, I should have said that I caught a glimpse of the board where my derriere USED to be. The booty that it took me all my life to develop, thanks to a slender but rather hipless body type, had vanished. My rear view looked like an ironing board from the shoulders down.

This morning I did a Google search for solutions. Thank God I still have my legendary rack of boobage to fall back on. Unless, of course, the last 8 pounds decide to melt off my mammaries!!!! Anyway, I came across something called the Booty Pop, which could be the perfect antidote to board butt.

Booty Pops are a pair of boy-legged briefs with curved pads inserted in the back where my rear end used to be. I ordered them. Hey! A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

I wonder how I'd look with hair the color of Sharon Osbourne's...