We Stick to The Old Ways, Here

We stick to the old ways, here.

Manners; tea brewed without using a microwave; cookies baked from scratch rather than squeezed out of a tube.

Stuff like that.

But there are things I don't miss one little bit from the Happy Olden Days of Yore. Things I am glad have passed away.

Such as the Gym Class Tank suit

This devil's spawn of crotch-sawing ugliness was the required outfit for gym class. It was made from something that was not breathable cotton, but just what I have no iota. I only know it wasn't stretchy.

Because spandex had not yet been invented.

This item had to be ordered before the start of the school year. It came in an industrial powder blue and snapped up the front. It had an elastic waist, and unlike this little mini-looking number here, it had knee-length stovepipe legs.

Which made everyone look like they had tree trunks for gams.

There was a generic sort of sizing chart that had nothing to do with actual human measurements, which meant that the suit when it arrived was either big enough for several Sequoia Tree Trunks to grow in the legs, or so small that no seedling or sapling could ever grow thicker than an inch before shriveling to a suffocated death.

Or--in my case--cut so short-waisted that I went the entire 3 years of junior high afraid to raise my arms in gym class for fear of bisecting myself all the way to the ribs.

Stop for a moment and try to think of a gym class activity that does not require raising the arms in some way.

I failed gym class.

So, although I leave my phone at home firmly on the hook where it belongs, drink my water in a glass from the tap instead of in a squeezable nippled plastic bottle glued permanently to my hand in case I hit an arrid zone and start to dehydrate between one 7/11 and the next, and flat-out refuse to learn 'texting' language because it spells your as ur, I firmly embrace the invention of stretch cotton.

And happily bid farewell to the Tank Suit from the era of the Old Ways.