The Spurious Plum

Memo To The Fashion Impaired Public – The Skort

A Disclaimer To Those Who Haven’t Yet Boarded The Anti-Skort Bus:
Any excuses relating to the skort being a solution to chafing, discomfort or sweatiness are to be summarily dismissed. If these things bother you, then you should wear shorts. Without pleats, dammit!

So, skorts.

I shouldn’t even have to post about this. Really. Who comes up with this stuff? Was there ever a time these were a good idea? Who was the genius that while pondering her abraded thighs leapt up and bellowed 'Eureka'? I wanna know, because we’re going to that bitch’s house tonight with some torches and pitchforks for some hardcore Frankenstein mob shit.

WE ALL SHOULD KNOW BETTER. And yet I see people wearing these puppies on an almost daily basis. People from all walks of life. Young and old. Skinny minnies and gals with a little chunk in the trunk. People who have the rest of their shit together enough to know that combining two clothing items specifically designed to be different will end in tears. Let's call them Skorty-Fucks.

Skorty-Fucks can usually be grouped into one of the following four categories (because when I insult people, I like to create over-generalized lists):

'I'm Venus or Serena Williams'
This category is rather exclusive. They’re slim, pretty and have worked really hard to get Nike to PAY for their skorts, but tennis is not an excuse to suck. Exhibit A.

'I'm young and trendy and can get away with it'
No you can't. This category includes some of the most monstrous skort manifestations. Like pleated skorts. Gah. Subcategories include Preppy-Stuck-In-The-90's Skorty-Fuck and the I'm-A-Teenage-Dumbass Skorty-Fuck. See Exhibit B and Exhibit C.

'I'm old, and think they look sharp'
Let me first say, I'm not crackin' on the old folks. I'm 30 and I never even wear shorts. EVER. Why? Because I imagine the feelings of people outside of Planet Plum. Most folks don't have ‘see some big Dutch legs’ on their daily to-do list. Realizing my limitations, I'm accordingly comfortable covering up my legs. That being said, if you’re 70 and rocking spider veins that make arachnophobics run for therapy, skorts don't work for you. Yes, even if they are at the knee. Yes. YES. Exhibit D.

Babies
Jeebus. The things people do to children*. I know babies are small and fidgety, and wearing a skort instead of a skirt prevents pervy guys from spying hot Pampers action. But if a kid can't wear a skirty item without flipping it over her head like some Huggies exhibitionist, they're not ready for a skirty thing. I can’t believe Sally Struthers isn’t doing commercials to eradicate worldwide child skort wearing. Exhibit E - note the child's confusion.

The reasons skorts suck are innumerable. But hot damn, I love lists. Let’s keep it truckin’.

Bulges
Oh, the plethora thereof. Skorts invariably become scrunched up in unfavorable ways. Examples include:
-Front: The ‘Do you have a secret wang?’ bulge.
-Side: The 'On my off days I'm drunken, big-assed hula dancer’ bulge.
-Back: The ‘Am I really a dude who tucks his junk?’ bulge.
Anyone in favor of bulges? No! At least, not when clothing one's ass region.

Peek-a-boo, I can't see you
Skorty-Fucks can't see the shorts underneath the skirt, so the shorts become periodically wedged-up crotchways in a reeeeeeally unflattering way. Making inner thighs poke out. These folks remain sadly oblivious, due to that skirty flap thing in the front. Which brings me to…

That Flap
What the hell is that flap thing anyway? Like you’re some sort of fucked-up fashion kangaroo. That flap’s supposed to make things look skirty, and as the wearer ponders herself from the front, she thinks everything is safely cutie-pie'd away. But trust me, when your ass is sticking out of your SUV hatchback in the grocery store parking lot, I can see what's going on. I can see much, much more than I ever wanted to.

Look Away, Baby, Look Away
The biggest problem with the skort is really the same as many other global sartorial foibles, it's placed in an area you don't want people to look at. Don't tuck in and put pleats near your waist if you think your waist is chunky. Don't put tassels on your shoes unless you want to accent your old maniness. Don't wear giant, 6-inch tall flip-flops and then think we won't notice that you're a pygmy fashion idiot. Wearing skorts are like placing a big red arrow in an area that doesn’t need one. We don’t wanna see that shit. Dammit.

All of which boils down to two hard and fast rules for skorts.

#1-If you’re not a toddler, you shouldn’t be wearing skorts. If you want to stop, we’ll check you into Skorty-Fucks Anonymous. We still love you. Everyone makes mistakes. There’s hope.
However, if you're more than three years old, wearing skorts and refuse to stop, you should be trotted out into the nearest courtyard and shot. Summarily. No exceptions. We'll still love you, but it's for the good of humanity. Skorty-Fucks Anonymous is starting to sound pretty good, eh?

#2-If you're under three, and someone’s putting skorts on you, we need to call Child Protective Services. Also, if you’re under three and reading this blog, I’m very impressed. If Brittany Spears can get busted for bonking some baby head, the authorities should sure as hell get involved for skorts. For they're far more heinous.

Mateo’s note: I like the skort in theory, because it reminds me of the spork. And thinking about sporks makes Mateo happy, although it is associated with the crappy-ass grade school cafeteria… et cetera, et cetera. In other words, skort=good name, but bad product.

Too long. Time for fruit!

* Like sticking elastic headbands on girl babies with no hair (another post, for another time). No one is fooled into thinking the child has hair, just because there's something in it. You're ostensibly cutting off blood flow to a child’s brain for fashion is never good. Plus, the kid looks stupid and keeps pulling the damn thing off all day. I call bullshit.
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Random Fruit Fact: The Dwarf Sumac

"When soaked for 10 - 30 minutes in hot or cold water it makes a very refreshing lemonade-like drink (without any fizz of course)...There are some suggestions that the sap of this species can cause a skin rash in susceptible people, but this has not been substantiated."

See. That skirty rash is totally unproven. Learn more about the Dwarf Sumac, here.

Posted by Spurious Nurse at 4/28/2006 11:38:00 PM 12 comments

Beep! Beep!

One of the things I've been doing during my little hiatus is recuperating from a wee bit of an injury. Nothing too serious. During a December bike ride to work, a thoughtless driver cut me off and I ran into a freeway overpass.

Not 'onto' the freeway.

Not 'towards', 'next to' or 'in the general direction of' the freeway.

Smack. Like Wile E. Coyote on the rocks of his own ineptitude.

Hey. Let's take this Wile E. Coyote metaphor and run with it. For the sake of argument, let's say I'm the Coyote, and the Bitch-Who-Probably-Runs-
Over-Babies-On-Sundays-For-Kicks is the Road Runner. To play out our drama we'll need to follow Road Runner cartoon rules. These rules are from the LooneyToons website, so they're all official and shit.

Rule 1: Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going "Beep! Beep!"In the process of hitting the freeway, I got a couple of avulsion fractures (wherein ligament pulls off little hunks of bone) and did weird things to a nerve in my ankle. If the bitch in the car had gone "Beep!Beep!" I might have moved, and subsequently avoided having my ankle manhandled by my nazi of a physical therapist (a man who should be arrested by the UN for crimes against humanity).

Rule 2: No outside force can harm the Coyote -- only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products.
Well, you really couldn't call it my "ineptitude". Could you? I called it ineptitude earlier? Well then, yes. I guess you could.

Rule 3: The Coyote could stop anytime -- IF he was not a fanatic.
After the bitch hit me, I rode the rest of the way to work, because I didn't want to be "a wuss". And because I'm an idiot.

Rule 4: No dialogue ever, except "Beep! Beep!"
Please see rule # 1. Bitch didn't play fair.

Rule 5: Road Runner must stay on the road - for no other reason than that he's a roadrunner.
I don't think my pursuer even saw what she did to me. But I am glad she didn't go that extra mile and go off roadin' and hit the freeway with me.

Rule 6: All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters -- the southwest American desert.
Los Angeles is the southwest. And the freeway is the natural environment of Los Angeles. Anyplace where you spend that much time is your natural environment.

Rule 7: All tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme Corporation.
My bike's a Trek. But this incident wasn't the fault of my beautiful bike...So the metaphor isn't complete. You wanna start some shit?

Rule 8: Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote's greatest enemy.
After rolling up a bit of a hill and smacking into the freeway overpass, I managed to remain briefly upright, and then teetered and fell down the hill into a pile of bike and embarrassment. With unparalleled grace, of course. Embarrassment is also what made me not call my doctor for 2 months. Which made her yell at me. Hooray.

Rule 9: The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.
After the accident, a lovely gentleman pulled over and asked if there was anything he could do to help. To which I replied, "Can I please just be alone? I'm just really embarrassed right now..." Because after hurting one's self, one should always try to foil other people's attempts to be kind. I'm an idiot.

Rule 10: The audience's sympathy must remain with the Coyote.
But it shouldn't, because I'm an IDIOT.
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Random Fruit Fact: The Saguaro

"In the summer, coyotes eat saguaro fruit. Their scat (waste droppings) often contains large numbers of saguaro seeds that pass through the animal undigested. Some of these seeds will sprout and grow."

I'm the Coyote, but I promise I didn't crap after the accident. Learn more about the Saguaro Fruit, but not a lot, here. Or learn a lot (but it's pretty hippie), here.

Posted by Spurious Nurse at 4/12/2006 01:12:00 AM 10 comments