CV&T Lifestyle Editor Tish King

Things have gotten so artificial these days that it has led to a “Go Green” campaign.

Many farmers pride themselves on their organic grown vegetables and “free range” poultry. But this is only the beginning of a change in that direction—more of a “getting back to nature” way of living, if you will. 

On the other hand, many things are getting more artificial. Have you had any of those prepackaged “ready-to-eat” salads and vegetables? These are supposed to be washed and ready to go. I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand the smell of that stuff the minute you open the bag. The scent of the preservatives turns me off right away. I just can’t eat that stuff without washing the daylights out of it first. Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose of the ready-to-eat convenience of it all?

Well, I’m here to tell you that food isn’t the  only place we will find things artificial. We women take the cake when it comes to artificial. We are the artificial queens. For instance let’s take the color we put on our hair–that isn’t natural, is it? How about the makeup we put on our face? Does that make us natural?

That’s just the beginning. How about facelifts, tummy tucks, liposuction–what’s real about that? How about some of the things we wear? Now you can buy jeans and slacks that have a front panel that’s suppose to control your tummy and make you look instantly slimmer. I checked out the slimming panel in those pants–ain’t no way that panel would control my tummy–it actually stretches–how controlling is that?

For years women have done everything they can to look slimmer and make their bodies look like something that they really aren’t. We have worn girdles, squeezed into tight jeans, pushed up, out, padded, increased and decreased everything we have to look like something we are not.

I was flipping channels on the TV the other night when I ran upon one of the shopping channels and stopped to check out what they were selling. I got a big laugh out of their product. The models were wearing a product called “Bootie Pop.” Now, I have seen this sort of thing advertised in magazines before, but never have seen it sold on TV.

This was a padded panty. The rear end of this garment was padded to make yours look bigger than it is? How crazy is that? For years we have tried to make our back sides look smaller, now they want us to look bigger?

Well, let me tell you what I thought the girl looked like. She looked like maybe a giant bumble bee had bitten her on the back side and it had swelled up into two big balloons. Better yet, it made her look like she had two cantaloupes stuck in the seat of her pants, or maybe two soccer balls. Sorta reminded me of the padding football players wear–well protected. Boy, if anybody mistakenly pinched that they would be in for a big surprise. 

I guess one advantage to wearing one of those is that you will have a soft seat anywhere you sit down.