Put your danged belly away!

No, despite the title and my current infertile status, I'm not issuing a blanket directive to all pregnant women. They only have so much choice of where to put the belly anyway!

Instead, I'm referring this evening to those of the so called fairer sex who decide it's hip, cool, and generally okay to expose their midriffs for all the world to see.

A small percentage of the female population can actually get away with this. The ladies with the concave bellies who work out like crazy, eat really well, and upon viewing, basically make me feel even worse about my diva physique than I do on a regular day. Yep, they're the ones.

They can pull off the belly shirt. And I'm okay with being exposed to that flat patch of flesh - hell, they work that hard to get it, hells yeah, show it off to everyone who walks by!

The rest of the ladies out there - and really, you should know who you are - should, before leaving the house, ensure that there is full fabric coverage throughout the entire midsection area.

See, this is a no brainer for me. Never shall my fish belly white tummy region see the light of day. Never gonna happen.

Hence its current state of fish belly whiteness.

Shit, I'll even do the stretch test just in case. You know, I'll stand in the change room as I'm trying something on and do a fake reach up with one arm to be sure the belly doesn't slip out the sides of my shirt. 'Cause you never know when you'll be called upon to fetch an item from a tall shelf or forced to thrust your arm skyward to grip the middle bar on the subway.

But for some reason, other gals just don't get it. They apparently see nothing wrong with flaunting their muffin tops and love handles to anyone graced with eyeballs. They care to not cover up in public. And to me, it's just plain wrong.

Maybe they don't see anything amiss when they look in the mirror. I suppose that's not entirely a bad thing. In this day and age of 12 year olds wearing minuscule string bikinis and modeling their diet and lifestyle after the Olsen twins, maybe feeling okay about your body, muffin top and all, is a rather healthy mental state.

But when I see a white belly replete with stretch marks and ripples coming my way, I nevertheless break out into a full body shudder.

I say this somewhat tongue in cheek of course, mostly because I am nowhere close to those super fit, flat tummy-ed girls that I barely have the energy to aspire to be, let alone aim for. I know that no one would ever want to see my belly in its fleshy goodness. Hell, my upper arms rarely make public appearances - there's no way my diva pooch will ever see the light of day.

And therein lies the difference.

I know better.

I KNOW not to wear a shirt that's too short for me. I KNOW that my pants/skirt/shorts must come up to a certain point in order to prevent exposure. I KNOW that specific tshirts will never meet my length requirements, and therefore I do not leave the store with them in my possession.

Now if only I could convince some of the walking fashion disasters that cross my path on a daily basis to embrace my simple techniques I'd be just plain delighted.

Until then, I'll have to stick to my current practice of averting my eyes as best I can.

And that's your daily dash. How's your diva doin'?