kilt-shorts give me the creeps.

Max’s school is one block away from a Catholic high school. If the image that immediately popped into your head was Britney Spears from the Baby One More Time video, I don’t blame you. That’s where I’m going with this anyway – everyone’s favourite stereotype: the slutty Catholic school girl. As the days grow colder, I wonder to myself, will this be the day the girls give up their kilt-shorts for some sensible pants? And every day I become more and more confident that any self-respecting slutty catholic school girl would happily freeze her sweet patootie off in 3 feet of snow and subzero weather before she would give up her kilt-shorts for a pair of khakis. It just isn’t going to happen.

You heard me, kilt-shorts. What? You haven’t had the pleasure of seeing these yet?

Kilt-shorts are shorts (I’m talking short shorts à la John Stockton) that are part shorts and part kilt. If jean shorts are "jorts", these are "shilts", or "kirts". Probably kirts, that is way more catchy. I digress. The kilt part barely covers the shorts, making it look like the person wearing said kirt, is wearing a mighty mighty short skirt. Yes – gone are the days of seeing private school girls walk to school and back rolling their kilts up and down from the top to make them shorter.  Thanks to your local uniform company, that is no longer necessary.

I find myself torn about these kirts. It feels like by including this garment as part of what is deemed to be an "acceptable" part of the school uniform, girls are being given permission to dress inappropriately for their age. Or, to be more direct, like sluts. Wait, that’s going to far. Let’s go with this instead: Young girls are being told it is absolutely okay to dress in a sexually provocative manner at school, in fact, they are being encouraged to do so.

The other side of this is that if these girls are going to roll up their kilts anyway, at least these kirts are protecting their modesty by keeping their vaginas and buttocks fully covered. Because, you know, that will stop them from dancing, and dancing leads to sex and stuff, and we can’t have that. And we won’t talk about the fact that under these kirts, most of these girls are wearing thongs they purchased at La Senza Girl, the junior version of La Senza - a lingerie store for women. Start 'em young eh? It's never too early for butt floss!

Am I out to lunch on this? Would you let your daughter wear a kirt? Were you the girl rolling up your kilt on the way to school? Maybe because for me, clothing for school consisted of a beaver canoe sweatshirt, jeans and a pair of converse and I never wore a uniform I don’t get it. Let me know.

Sacrilicious Sunday: Happy Time!

I am often inappropriate. Scratch that. I am constantly inappropriate. The filter between my brain and my mouth is as holey as a pair of pantyhose with a run up the leg (the ones you tried to fix with clear nail polish, but that didn't work so they are now wadded up in the bottom of your purse as you pray nobody notices that your legs are bare and you haven't shaved them in a week). I have a dark and twisted sense of humour. When someone tells me they went to the spa had a manicure, pedicure and facial...you got it...(and if you don't, that's cool...) my mind is automatically picturing you in a terribly compromising position. If you tell me to "keep something on the down-low", good lord, it's taking all I've got not to arch my eyebrow and say "damn!".

So, imagine me, out grocery shopping with Max yesterday, innocently looking for hand soap in the pharmacy section when I stumbled upon the following: Did you catch that? If not, let me blow it up for you:
That's right, it's "Happy Time" (which they've wisely trademarked!!) Shower Cream. Wonderful. Though to be honest, I found the directions disappointinly vague. Apparently you are supposed to "let the delicious fruity scent of orange blossom stimulate your senses, while the the silky shower cream with caring bamboo milk leaves your skin feeling beautifully soft and smooth. Relax and rejuvenate with every shower". It gets better - the website promises a "cream shower for soft revitalizing sensation". All for under ten dollars ladies!! Added bonus - apparently there's a Happy Time Body Cream too (in case you didn't get as relaxed and revitalized as you would have liked in the shower).

Huh. I clearly need more details on how to get to the point where I "relax and rejuvenate" myself. And damned if I can find the place where the batteries go either. Not to worry, I bought me a bottle of this fine elixir and I plan to test it out for myself. I recommend you do the same and report back on your results. Kudos to the marketing person who snuck this name through the focus groups. You made my day. Here's to a happy ending for all of us!