Today, The Parent Blogger’s Network and Sk*rt want to know what you’re hiding under your skirt.

Ah, my skirt. I don’t wear skirts very often. They aren’t practical since I’m often crawling around the floor with my kids or climbing up slides with them at the park. If it’s warm enough for a skirt I’d rather wear a pair of shorts. If it’s winter, I’d rather wear pants because I hate wearing tights or nylons. Every once in awhile though, I will go ahead and bite the bullet and wear one. And then I have to spend the rest of the day remembering to sit like a lady instead of putting my feet up on my desk or sitting cross-legged on the floor.

When I went to work at the studio back when I first met George, our boss once made a comment about how I never wore a skirt. He even joked that I was actually a “man with breasts”. (Yes, I could have called sexual harassment on that but a – we were all friends by then and b – a lot of people there could have filed the same charge against me!) I explained my lack of interest in wearing skirts too often by recounting this incredibly embarrassing true story:

About ten years ago, I decided that since I had been made the assistant manager of the tech support department of the ISP where I worked, I should maybe stop wearing jeans to work, so I put on a skirt, a blouse, and a pair of nylons. To avoid the horror that is Visible Panty Lines, I wore a thong underneath it all. Great! All ready to go! Not that comfortable, mind you, but I looked great.

I walked to the subway, and since it was rush hour, I stood the whole way to work. When it was my stop, I picked up my big shoulder bag/briefcase thing that I carried and walked off the subway and headed to the escalator. People glanced at me, and several men smiled appreciatively as I wandered along and out the door to the street.

(You see where this is going right? I didn’t at the time though. Obviously.)

As I walked up the street to my office building, one good looking man in particular looked at me as we crossed paths, then stopped to do a double take, and gave me a huge smile and a wink. As I pushed the door to go in my building I was thinking, “Jesus, I should wear a skirt more often! This is great for my self-esteem – I must look bloody AMAZING!”

The lobby of our building was completely mirrored. I checked myself out as I headed to the elevator, huge “I look awesome!” smile on my face. And then I froze. Because I realized that my knee-length skirt was tangled up in my bag and had been hiked up enough that everyone could see I was wearing a nice white THONG underneath my not-exactly-opaque black nylons.

No wonder men had been smiling at me all the way up the street, how many men wouldn’t smile at someone who was basically waving her ass cheeks in the wind? I dropped my bag so fast that it crashed to the floor, and I frantically pulled my skirt down, while giving myself whiplash to make sure no one was looking at me. Because you know, one more person would have made a huge difference after walking up an escalator and up an entire downtown city block at rush hour.

Also? Thank you to the women of downtown Montreal for showing total solidarity by taking two seconds to let me know my ASS WAS HANGING OUT UNDER MY SKIRT, I really appreciate that.

I have been totally paranoid ever since. So if you see me in a skirt and my hands keep brushing the back of it, smoothing it down, I’m not grabbing myself, I’m just making sure I’m still covered up. But it’s more likely that you just won’t see me in a skirt at all because it’s just easier to stay contained in something that has legs attached to it.

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If you don’t mind, now I need to ask you for a big favor. There are some awesome prizes being offered to the blogger who gets the most Sk*rt votes for their story. This means that I would love you forever (and ever and ever and ever) if you could go and click on the “love it” button for me. The more votes I get, the better! It would make me feel much better about walking around downtown with my ass sticking out, that’s for sure! Go here to vote for me! Thanks!