Operation: Liberation Spanx = disaster.

Like most things, last nights disasterpeice started with good intentions. Getting ready for a date with a guy I legitimately like (which is something of a rarity) I have the genius idea to take my look to the next level: spanx. Girls - you know what I'm talking about, they just make your silhouette better - I swear! Not only that, but this was one of our first dates, and to be honest, I wasn't really planning on him getting up close and personal with control top panty hose.

This is until 10pm rolls around, along with another bottle of wine.

Spanx may be gods gift to women.... until you wear them under a dress, and said person whom you probably wore the spanx for, can now feel the fact you are wearing the modern day equivalent to a girdle. Secondly, while spanx are intended to help the general public, last night all they presented me with were challenges: 1. how to get them off without anyone realizing I had them on, and 2. now that there's nothing under my dress, how not to look like an s-l-u-t. Check please.

We were planning on leaving the bar and going to a club with friends but as we came with 2 cars, now tipsy, we were going to leave with 2 cars to our next spot. This gives me approximately 10 minutes of alone time to drive drunk while simultaneously ditching the spanx. If you think its difficult to drive after 5 glasses of wine, try trying to drive after 5 glasses of wine, while following another tipsy driver, while sliding tights off your body while keeping your foot on the brake. Im telling you, my accomplishments never seem to be less impressive.

Operation: Liberation Spanx, while sounding like a fool proof plan had one petite problem. The spanx were my undergarment if you catch my drift and my dress wasn't exactly floor length. Once again, life presents a cross roads: which is worse? 1. Having a hand run down your side to meet the seams of spanx or 2. Having a hand run down your side to meet nothing.

If I go with option one, I can kiss the rest of my night goodbye. If I go with option two, lets just say, nothing says sure thing more clearly then a short dress and no underwear.

Now some may argue I made the wrong decision here, but I'll be damned if I go to spin classes three times a week to have people think I need spanx.

The choice has been made, I am now slithering and sliding in the drivers seat waiting for the next red light to seal the deal. I am almost there, the right side is almost by my ankles, the left half way down my knee. Oh shit, no - okay why is he pulling up next to me... this is not good. The only thing worse then him feeling body shaping tights under a dress is pulling up next to me in a car to see said tights around my ankles. Furthermore, he was in an SUV, giving him the leverage to see everything.

In a moment of sheer panic I slam my left foot on the brake, release my right foot, switch my left foot with my right foot and then start to wiggle my left foot around hoping to at least get them low enough where one couldn't see them through the window. Just as the car pulls up, victory is attained resulting in crumpled up tights to the left of the brake - phew.
If only life were really that easy. Me, thinking myself sly after I just had James Bond's next installment take place in my drivers seat, roll down the window to hear whatever he had to say but rather then look me in the eyes, he's looking down, into my car - almost with a look of excited disbelief. There is no way he can see a small rolled up tight under my foot, and even if he did, that is not enough to produce this face.

It is time to investigate. Slowly but surely I begin to look down too... only to see that now the fact that I am underwear-less is no surprise - to anyone. In pulling down the tights, I had pulled up the skirt, and well... the skirt never came back down. Now if looks as if I saw him pulling up next to me, where I then decided to flash him. 

You have got to be kidding me. There is no way this is my life. I blink tightly, look down, and whoop there it is - again - fucking fantastic.

Getting out of the car, I now feel the need to backtrack and explain the whole story. So in the end, I was outed as a spanx patron, flashed him as to show they're not needed, and had I stayed with option 1 of keeping the spanx on and sticking to my original choices, the result would have been the same, minus a lot of embarrassment: I can kiss the rest of my night goodbye.

Lesson Learned: It is not possible for Erika Wasser to go on a date without having havoc and mortifying embarrassment ensue. It is time for me to put down payments on "I love Cats" tote bags and lean cuisine frozen dinners... who said cat ladies were so bad anyway?