Yes, it makes you look fat

Alright, I know I've been slacking. Sue me.

Today's post is about clothing, and weight.

And those who know me are probably laughing too hard to read the rest of this right now because if there are two things I'm not, they're thin, and a fashion plate.

But this isn't about my clothing, which is sad, or my weight, which is also sad.

And look, I'm not here to mock people's clothing, or their weight. I'm not really one to talk. Though I have lost 15 pounds or so in the past year. Once I had trouble seeing my favorite appendage, it was time to drop some pounds.

What I'm here to mock is a certain combination of clothing and weight.

Because, let's be honest, no one wants to see it.

OK, it's hot as hell in New Jersey these days, and that means skimpy clothes on the ladies. And that's what makes late spring my second-favorite time of the year: Hot chicks in tank tops. That's not what I'm writing about. That's why pictures are worth 1,000 words.

There is, however, a downside to skimpy clothes on the ladies: Skimpy clothes on not-so-skimpy ladies.

Look, here's what I'm saying: Dress for your body type. I don't wrap my beer-and-pizza gut in skin-tight T-shirts, and I don't wear Speedos at the beach. And the world is a better place for this. When you're 5-9 and 200+ pounds, and you've got shoulders the size of an NFL linebacker and a 19" neck, you don't wear the stuff Ralph Lauren sends down the runway on the back of some 6-3, anorexic male model.

But most guys aren't really offenders here, let's be honest. Fat guys dress like fat guys. Or, in Stewie's case, like a fat guy whose shirt caught the brunt of an explosion at a confetti factory.

And, to their credit, some fat girls dress like fat girls.

The problem is when fat girls dress like skinny girls.

See, I've got a theory on clothing, which is that chicks get all the cool clothes, because chicks come in all shapes and sizes.

There are four kinds of guys: The fat ones, the skinny ones, the in-between ones, and the muscleheads. So there are clothes for each type, and some transitional clothing for guys like me, who are somewhere in between two types (in my case, in-between and fat).

But ladies get variety, because ladies are varied. Short, tall, fat, thin, busty, flat, pear-shaped, hourglass, curvy, rails, etc., etc., etc. I mean, come on. Women's clothing has sizes: 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, etc. Then there's the petites, same idea, just smaller.

Guys get small, medium, large, xtra-large, and I-need-a-second-seat-on-the-damn-plane. That's it.

So, understandably, it's easy for girls to miscalculate and put too much body into not enough clothes. It happens.

The sin is that, most rational people would look at themselves in the mirror, say "aw, shit, I need to lose some weight" or something along those lines, and change. But not everyone does.

Here's a hint: It's not called a belly shirt because I want to see your belly sticking out of it.

I've seen at least three young ladies in recent days, relatively attractive to quite attractive, slightly chubby here and there, but nothing too bad, except that they're just wedged into these teeny little shirts that ride up in all the wrong ways.

You know exactly what I'm talking about, guys, right? (And you objective girls, too?)

The thing is, it's not sexy. It's not flattering. It's kind of repulsive. And it can take an otherwise decent-looking (if not thin) young woman and make her look horrible. Many of these girls aren't even that big. They've just got some curves in bad places. And they're showing those places off.

Most sane people try to hide their worst physical feature. Weak-chinned guys grow goatees. A-cup women get those neat padded bras. I don't wear a Speedo, like I said. And so on.

But these people - and I'm not picking on women in that misogynistic way you're probably thinking I am, I've just never seen a guy with his beer gut hanging out of a belly shirt - these people are allowing the entire world to share in their physical misfortune.

And I'm here to say, that's just wrong. Put on some goddamn clothes. No one wants to bother searching the great plains of your ample midsection to find that navel ring that proportionately looks like the boat at the end of "The Perfect Storm," or that tattoo peeking up from your jeans that's supposed to be a Playboy bunny but has been stretched into something that would make Torquemada smack the guy running his rack and say "Why can't ours go that far?"

It's like the time one of my fraternity brothers cheerfully regarded an underdressed young woman and chirped, "You want some jelly with that roll?"

Maybe not our finest hour at PiLam, but that doesn't mean he was wrong. There's a reason we invented the Spandex Violation rule. (You know, when your stretchy, skin-tight artificial-fiber clothing is screaming for mercy for all the wrong reasons? That's a Spandex Violation. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.)

So as the hot weather continues, and the temptation is there to wear as little as possible...

(Aside, that's why I prefer winter to summer. You can always keep putting clothes on, but you can only take so much off.)

Where was I?

Oh, yeah, when the temptation is there to wear as little as possible... give yourself a good look in the mirror before you go outside and say to yourself, "Are other people going to want to see this? When they're eating?"

Then, if you're one of these ladies this is directed at, pull your pants over your thong straps, tuck your shirt over your tummy, and realize that now people might look at your face, or your rack, or your butt, or something else you want them to look at.

See, that's how you'll be the cute, sexy girl who gets the guys' attention, and not just someone to ridicule.

Oh, and skinny girls, the belly shirts are just fine. Wear more. All the time. And you can let the thong straps show. Especially when I'm around.

And wear tank tops. Lots of tank tops.

Links:
• "What Not to Wear," the cruelest show on TV
• My How-Not-To example
• And for those who looked at the previous link and wondered, like me, "What's a chav?"
• And in the interests of being as "fair and balanced" as some cable news...

When I went looking for a link to a good example picture (see link #2 above), Google spit out so many other blogs bitching about the same thing, that it made me feel thoroughly unoriginal. What can I say? I saw a girl with her tummy hanging out at the mini-mart on my way home tonight and it got me thinking.

But then I got distracted by another girl, who was out buying cigarettes - in her pajamas! I shit you not. No bra, no underwear, just a tight black tank and some pajama bottoms. Fortunately, she more or less had the body to pull it off, wedgie and all, or the fashion police might've brought out some yellow tape and the coroner.

See, girls can get away with wearing anything. A guy doesn't get past the newspaper in the driveway in his pajamas, commando-style, or he ends up in a cell with some priest from Boston, wishing he had Michael Jackson's lawyer.

(Off-topic, remind me, if I'm ever going to commit a crime, to do it in California. Home of Jacko, O.J. and Robert Blake.)