Dear Leggings,

Dear Leggings,

Hi. Hope you're Monday is going well. I think our date went pretty well yesterday. Did you watch mad Men last night? OK, this is going to be awkward no mater how much I sugarcoat it, so just let me say it. I'm writing because I don't want you to get the wrong idea.

The fact that you and I are even in a relationship again is astounding. The last time I saw you in 1991, you were creme colored, I was carrying twenty extra pounds, and CDs were just catching on. Looking back at pictures of those days, it is plain to see you did me wrong. Sure, I wasn't exactly helping you out with coordinating creme flats and not-at-all-ass-obscuring tunic, but your comfort deluded me into thinking I actually looked good. Pfft. So I dumped you and your capri-length flowered incarnation as well, into the Goodwill bin.

Fast-forward eighteen years and we run into each other at Target. I glared at you from my spot in the checkout line, behind the woman buying ten bottles of detergent and a track suit, wondering how you dared show your face in the fashion world again. Hadn't women everywhere learned their lesson? I walked out that day laughing the laugh of the righteous. Until that winter came. Fed up with the daily hunt for white, not creme, tights that did not have a hole in them or weren't tied in eighty-five knots around a pair of jeans in the dryer, and the complaints when a favorite dress could not be worn on gym day since feet ensconced in tights "feel weird" inside sneakers, I hesitantly let you back into my life. My kids loved you and that made it seem like you had changed. After all, it wasn't my thighs you were encasing. Leave that to the children and gazelle-limbed teenagers.

And then...

This fall you were everywhere. Of course in the magazines I am getting too long in the tooth to read, like Glamour, but then you crept your way into the fashion section of O Magazine, which is usually the realm of figure-flattering slacks and cowl-necked sweaters, silencing my cries of "But I'm too old!" My knee-high riding boots, it seems, were to act as your wing man, whispering to me from their cardboard coffin under the bed, that getting back together with you would provide me with another option, other than my skinny jeans, when wearing them, since mercifully boots of their ilk were in again this season. A sartorial menage-a-trois if you will.

So last week we met for a cheap date at Old Navy. I'm sorry we couldn't get together at J Crew, but for what I consider to be a fling, I'm not spending any big cash. And that is exactly my point, Leggings. We are just having a fling, a cold-weather romance. I even thought it would be a one night stand, once I received H's mocking appraisal of my purple tunic and gray leggings ensemble, but his approving looks have bought you some time in the sun. Just don't get used to it. I have yet to try you out other than in the safety of my own home. You're comfy and cute, but can you be taken out in public? I'm not sure yet if you aren't the fashion equivalent of a guy/girl who's good enough to sleep with, but who's too ugly to take out to dinner.

I'm sorry to hurt your feelings, Leggings. I hope this works out well for both of us. You'll get a chance to be walk among the living again and make amends for your past wrongs, rather than living in the annals of unfortunate fashion history, and I'll get a chance to feel somewhat fashion forward. But I swear to God, the minute I feel I'm getting a "she's trying too hard vibe" from even the mailman, you are being kicked right to the curb.

See you Saturday night. I have a thigh-length sweater I want you meet.

Sincerely,
MM

PS - Tell your friend the vest, despite our rekindled romance, she has absolutely NO shot.