Watch out, world--I'm a fat girl in spandex.

So, I have a confession to make. The tshirts that I've been mentioning frequently on this blog were, in fact, fictional. At least, until now. You see, I didn't actually go shopping for tshirts, even though I suspected doing so could cure my abdominal symptoms. Call me a sucker for modern medicine...

However, to correct the situation, I went shopping last night and actually purchased the tshirts that, until now, existed solely in my imagination. And, I am in fact wearing one right now. A brown one. And, it's made of 95% cotton and 5% spandex. However, this makes me pose a few questions for the world in general.

You see, the world of plus-size clothing is...bizarre at best, littered with butterfly-embroidered horrors lunging out of discount racks in the unlit sections of big box stores. It can be a little bit of a nightmare. Clothing designers often seem to have the idea that plus-size means styles that haven't been popular since 1985, and even then they moved to the 50% off rack within 2 or 3 weeks. It means looking through mumus and farmer-plaids and finding nothing but a half-okay belt buckle for your troubles. It means weeks of shopping and finding maybe one usable piece of clothing. It means...

SPANDEX?

I went off looking for a tshirt. (Or rather several tshirts if possible.) So, knowing that my best chance of finding something usable would be Target which, surprisingly, often has almost fashionable clothing in the plus size section (although it's always uncomfortably close to the maternity section, so it's easy to get confused & wander over to a rack of clothing that looks promising but turns out to hold clothing designed for women with people inside of them). So, I grabbed a couple of tshirts that looked fairly okay, then meandered over to the fashionably decorative tanks which I would, of course, only wear under some sort of button-down thingy, and grabbed a couple of those as well, then proceeded to get my little '6' tag thingy and marched confidently off to the dressing room.

When I got there, to my surprise, I discovered that these tshirts were stretchy! They had the texture of cotton, but were, let us say, a little more clingy than usual. So, I turned & I peered, and, to my great astonishment, I actually liked the look, so I bought 4. In various colors.

What the HECK is wrong with me? Why would a person in my condition buy clothing that contains spandex??? And, more importantly, why would plus-size clothing designers, who are admittedly NOT generally in their right mind, design clothing that CONTAINS spandex? It was a conundrum not to be denied.

And yet, here I sit, having spent one of the most refreshing, cool sort of days I've had in weeks. With my sleeves at the slightly-longer-than-cap length, and the material of my tshirt nice and breatheable, I've passed an exceedingly pleasant day.

So, to all of those mockers and naysayers who claimed it couldn't be done, to all of those men passing by who blanch in horror, to all of those women whose toes curl in disgust, I say: pshaw! Tut Tut! Humbug! Balderdash! And, maybe even 'Filigree!'

For I am a free woman. A free fat woman. Wearing spandex.