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Does This Virtual Reality Make Me Look Fat?

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By Jackie Papandrew

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 12, 2008

Sometimes I wish I was a man. That's because men have an enviable indifference to bathing-suit reality.

Every man thinks he looks good in his bathing suit - even those with enough back hair to weave a small rug and a beer belly of sufficient size to be a walking Budweiser billboard. I'd kill for that kind of confidence.

Most women, though, believe they resemble Teletubbies in their swimsuits. We can only be persuaded to try on new ones each summer because - as with childbirth - we forget the agony endured during the experience. This seasonal amnesia allows us to set out once again on a search for the sublime suit, the one that will leave us looking like a supermodel.

When I was younger, I too was seeking a supermodel suit. I hoped to be considered bodacious in my bathing attire. Now, having reached middle age, I'm content if my beach body fails to cause vomiting or retinal damage.

So with these modest goals in mind, I recently began my annual spandex search. I thought I'd found the ideal answer with the Virtual Model. See, you can now re-create yourself online by entering your measurements. Then you can try on computerized bathing suits in the privacy of your home while eating an entire carton of Haagen-Dazs. The virtual you maintains her shape even as the real you adds another 10 pounds. It doesn't get any better than that.

The virtual me turned out to be quite a hot mamma, I must say.

Unfortunately, when I attempted to stuff my real skin into my virtual suit, I was sorely disappointed. Not only was I not a hot mamma, I wasn't even warm. On the virtual me, certain appendages intended to nourish babies had provided a pleasing presentation. On the real me, said appendages seemed to have vanished. Upon further inspection, I found them cowering under my armpits. The spectacle was even scarier in the lower regions, but I will spare you the details.

My high-tech suit solution having shriveled, I was forced to drag myself down to the department store and enter the chamber of horrors known as the dressing room. Why do retailers insist on equipping their fitting rooms with fluorescent lighting and three-way funhouse mirrors? Don't they realize if we could view our bodies via candlelight through frosted glass (and perhaps after a couple of martinis), we'd likely take out a second mortgage to buy every suit in stock?

I had armed myself with an assortment of the latest in swimwear styles: the tankini, which gives you the illusion of a two-piece but with the promise of greater coverage; the maillot, a one-piece that, just by having a French name, would surely bestow on me a certain je-ne-sais-quoi; skirted bathing suits supposedly capable of camouflaging cellulite; and sarong swim attire meant to minimize the midsection.

For a couple of hours, I stood in front of those blasted mirrors under those blinding lights and tried on suit after suit.

Sadly, none of them met even my humble expectations. The tankini tanked as my flesh oozed out of its assigned areas. The maillot, despite its French connection, was a definite non.

I struggled into a skirted floral number that made me look frighteningly like Hyacinth the Hippo. I wrapped myself in a striped sarong that was definitely not right. Nothing made me happy.

In the end, I left empty-handed, dubbing my quest a dismal failure. Now I'm considering spending the summer in a burlap sack. First, though, I'm going to pay another visit to that vixenish virtual me. Maybe I'll feed her some Haagen-Dazs.

Jackie Papandrew lives in Largo and is the author of the syndicated humor column, "Airing My Dirty Laundry."

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