booty pop!

a couple months ago my mom texted me a picture of a product so ridiculous it belongs in skymall (maybe next to the siamese slanket?). the product i speak of is booty pop. basically, it's underwear with padding sewn in to "make your booty pop". check out the infomercial.


wow. how did i go so long without knowing about the product that's "revolutionizing women's undergarments"? i love the woman who says "you want your jeans to show off your booty". you mean, the booty you don't have? the booty you're going to take off at the end of the day?

but my favorite quote is "booty pop panties will make you look and feel like you spent a fortune!" so when i wear booty pop, people won't think i was born with my "bootylicious booty", they'll think i spent in excess of $11,000 for plastic surgery on my butt? i'm ordering mine right now! not.

what's unnerving to me is that despite my phobia of the word "panties" i was actually less bothered by the use of that word and more bothered by the number of times the word booty was used (20+ in case you were wondering. that's a booty every 6 seconds!). what disturbed me the most though, was the popping noise used strategically throughout the commercial.

after my mom sent me a picture of the product, i didn't give it much thought. until i read this passage in david sedaris's newest book when you are engulfed in flames.

I don't recall the product's exact name, but it amounted to a fake padded butt, the shapely synthetic cheeks sewn into the lining of a generous brief. I put it on my christmas list and was given a pair by my friend Jodi, who waited a few weeks before admitting she'd actually sent me a woman's ass -- in essence, a fanny.

And so it was. But that didn't stop me from wearing it. Though pear-shaped, my artificial bottom was not without it's charms. It afforded me a confidence I hadn't felt in years and gave me an excuse to buy flattering slacks and waist-length jackets. While walking to the grocery store or post office, I'd invariably find myself passed by a stranger who'd clearly thought he was following somebody else: Little Miss January or Pamela Anderson's stunt double.

My fanny kept me warm in the winter and early spring, but come hot weather it turned on me. The problem was the nylon padding, which, when coupled with a high temperature, acted much like a heating pad, causing me to sweat away what little ass I'd had in the first place. Chafed and bony, by early June my natural bottom resembled a rusted coin slot.

It was fun while it lasted, but unless I tore myself away, I knew I'd be relying on prosthetics for the rest of my life. I retired my fanny to its box in the hall closet. There it called to me, sirenlike, until a houseguest arrived, a tall, forlorn-looking woman who compared her ass, and not too favorably, to a cast-iron skillet. "I've got just the thing for you," I said. It wasn't my intention to give it to her, but after she tried it on, and I saw how happy it made her, how could I not? The woman stayed with us for a week, and while I hated for her to leave, I sort of loved watching her go.