When my agent called to tell me the good news, I was elated for about 30 seconds. This elation was quickly replaced by dread when I realized that booking a commercial means scheduling a fitting. Scheduling a fitting means pants. I hate pants. I have so many problems with pants that I recently became anorexic. As I walked into the fitting last Friday, I prayed that my anorexia had done the trick. Like all of my efforts to do the right thing and be a functioning woman of 32, anorexia let me down as well.
A fitting is my worst nightmare. It involves trying on cheap clothes in front of a group of strangers. To make matters worse, my brother was in town, so I had spent the previous evening housing short ribs and chocolate lava cake. Clearly I lack the wherewithal to make sacrifices for my craft. Needless to say, the fitting was an epic fail. As soon as I walked in, I was chastised for being obese. I then tried on a litany of pants – each more devastatingly ill-fitting than the last. As usual, they eventually just started wrapping pieces of cloth around my body and calling it an outfit. I had been defeated.
On Monday I was called in for a second fitting since the first had gone so horribly awry. At this point I was reeling from being forced to attend so many pants events. It was then that I reached a new level of embarrassment and desperation. The production company was insisting that I am clearly grossly overweight yet seemingly unaware of my girth. I had to submit my sizes before the fitting and I gave my weight, height and pant size. It’s been many years since I’ve been forced to wear pants, so I had to dig through my wardrobe of discarded dreams and find the pants that I have since abandoned. I concluded that I am an 8-10. The production company disagreed, and sent my agent this email:
Just got some information from the stylist that I wanted to pass on…the fitting did not go well on Friday because Alison had herself as a size 8 on her size card, (also confirmed on the phone with the stylist prior to the fitting,) when in fact she is a size 16. They did not have clothes that fit her because of this large discrepancy…
Listen…we are all beautiful at any size. BUT I AM NOT A SIZE 16 YOU FUCKING HORRIBLE WENCH! I knew so little about this supposed pant size that I had to Google that shit. Ya know who’s a size 16?! ADELE! In order to combat these lies, I started literally sexting my agent pictures of myself. Here’s a Craigslist-style picture of me sans head and here’s a picture of Adele:
In a stunning act of courage, I was able to turn this fucking pants nightmare around. The commercial I was shooting required me to bend over, thereby exposing my naked asshole to everyone on set, if I were forced to wear the gargantuan size 16 pants that supposedly fit me. I was not going to let myself be brutalized by pants any longer, so I turned to the friend who has never let me down. Other than delicious Jack Daniels and decadent Marlboro Reds, I have had only one ally in the world – leggings.
As evidenced by the headless horseman picture of me above, I put on my tightest clothes on the day of my shoot and then proceeded to just walk around hoping that someone would notice me. And someone did. Eventually, I was vindicated and allowed to wear all my own clothes for the shoot. Because of my dear friend, leggings, Project Pants ended up being a huge success.
It’s disheartening to think that even with my awkwardly low self-esteem and abysmal self-image, I’m still missing the mark on how horribly flabby others find me to be. Ultimately, I still have no idea what size pants I wear and I hope to never have to encounter pants again. They are trying to kill me. They ruined my life and I think they should be eradicated from fashion forever. In the meantime, two companies are still fighting about how fat I am and frankly, I’ve completely thrown in the towel on attractiveness as an option for me. My self-esteem has plummeted to excruciating levels. I guess the good news is we’re all gonna die someday. With my luck, they’d end up having a closed casket because no one would be able to find a pair of pants that fit me. Ugh…note to self: you want to be cremated.
