Two words.
NEVER AGAIN!

“Oooooooooh Lookit!” thinks Mammy in local chainstore for disposable clothing which shall remain nameless.

“Look at the spacey, funky, pinkly-purply gym bottoms that are fablis and reduced! Oh my! Down to €5? What a bargain. Oh indeed Mammy shall have to have these. Mammy is indeed still uber-cool and chic and young enough to carry these off. Mammy SHALL be fablis and fearless in Jim in these bad boys. What a bargain!”

Silly Mammy.
Silly Silly Mammy.

Off Mammy trots to Jim, rather excited about the wearing of the rocket-fuel bottoms. Mammy is so excited in fact, that it never crosses her silly mind to try them on at home first.

“Should you not try these on first Mammy?” says Mammy’s inside voice.
“Pahah! DESIST, you annoying wench! I know what size my arse is and these leggins shall look spectacular on it” answers poor, deluded Mammy.

When Mammy gets to Jim, she pulls on the bottoms. They go up to her knees before the bottom of the legs on the leggings decide that they shall not move. In fact, they will not budge above Mammy’s ankles. And any hope Mammy has of getting the material to cover her calves, is left wittering on the changing room floor, beside Mammy’s dignity and confidence.

When Mammy does get the top part of the bottoms to go over her arse, she is suddenly aware that while yes, her legs and nether regions may in fact be covered, she still has two problems.
1. The bottoms are so beautifully stuck to her calves, that the crotch part of them is NEVER going to make the journey to HER crotch.
2. When Mammy moves, the fablis pinky purply space pattern DISAPPEARS, being replaced by wonderful see-through white!

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK! thinks Mammy as she continues to bounce the bottoms up, trying and failing to get the crotches to align.

“FAAAAAAAACK!” shouts Mammy aloud as it dawns on her that this is as high as they will go. Thankfully, there is a drawstring on the top of the bottoms, (which were OBVIOUSLY designed for a giraffe with no ankles or calves and the leg circumference of a fricken table leg), and so Mammy ties it tight around her belly in the hope that at least the trousers will NOT fall off.

And so off Mammy toddles into Jim, where OF COURSE, Mr Fucking Motivator has a lovely circuit of Squats, lunges and Bear Crawls lined up for us. YES. I said BEAR CRAWLS… where Mammy and her Jimbuddies have to channel their inner Bear Cub and crawl like fecking MOWGLI through Jim, arses in the air!

“Ooooooooh, cool leggings Mrs R” coos one of the lovely proper-legging-wearing wenches.
“Oooooooooh nooooooooo!” answers Me. “I apologise in advance for the certain showing of my Hoohaa at some point during the next hour Ladies” announces Mammy. (Better to pre-empt the disaster eh? At least then, I can look like I MEANT for my table-leg/giraffe leggings to split along the pathetic seam on my unfortunate arse and offer heart failure to my training buddy half way through my squat jump.)

“3,2,1… Go!

I swear to God Ladybelles, I honestly thought that with every lunge I would hear the rip. When we were stretching, I could HEAR the material screaming. I could see the colour disappearing from every part of my legs that were moving. I could only IMAGINE what see-through catastrophe was happening on my arse. My calves were crying by the end of the session as the fecking material was trying so hard to merge into my skin that I truly feared that I might live the rest of my life with the awful, suddenly not so cool pattern, embedded onto my corned-beef skin.

Surprisingly, the bastarding Leggings DID survive the wrath of Jim.
Not so surprisingly, they did NOT survive Mammy REMOVING them from her poor suffocated legs. In fact, they had to be scissored off when she got home. Yes. I had to cut them off my calves.

Yes. I had to cut them off.

Lesson?

When you see leggings on sale seeming too good to be true, walk on by Mammy. They are indeed too good to be true.
And the next time I’m feeling guilty for spending money on proper gym bottoms, I shall remember that I am doing so for the good of my fellow Jimgoers, my nerves and my dignity.
And leave the funky, spacey, pinky purply leggings for the giraffes.

Traumatised I tell you.