Shorts in the City
By some shorts hating East Village mom
With the second “Summer Scorcher” upon us, I am reminded why I hate shorts in the city. As an East Village mother of a restless toddler, I have limited parks to walk to without sweating my ass off. I recently had to accept that if I want to be a truly good engaged mama, I can’t wear my sweet, flowing, comfortably cool sundresses when sliding down the slides or shimmying through pee-smelling dark tunnels with my kid unless I am cool showing my thonged ass or with ripping my skirt on some ancient screw barely holding a metal slide panel in place. These days my 21 month old boy prefers the slide to the swing but lacks the abs to control the slither down, so I happily ride tandem. My glee joining him overshadows the embarrassment of being embarrassed wearing an inexperienced mom dress. A real mom, an involved mom, knows she can’t wear a dress to go down these slides! So I am embarrassed for A. looking like an Upper East Side mom who’s nanny quit that day and B. for revealing that I wear a thong even in a dress. So after one particular day having revealed my normally thonged-self, probably with a period stain, to half of Tompkins Square Park, I begrudgingly invest in some classic khaki shorts from annoyingly omnipresent J-crew. I reserve these shorts for park visits only, as there is no other reason, minus a few exceptions, why a New Yorker should wear shorts. My repulsion to shorts begins, not surprisingly, with the subway. My sticky glutes and hammies, and surrounding skin, have always feared sitting on top of the invisible unknown sweaty molecules from those that came before me. And no matter how long my bermuda mom-jean shorts are, they creep up my crevice like it’s their job as I try to gracefully squat towards the seat. You all know. I try to always stand but if I must sit, I engage my core to limit the pressure of my seating so that the anonymous seat germs plague the least amount of my exposed under thighs. Zits, cellulitis, HBO... I am going to contract something. Shorts are just nasty. They were invented to keep the lower legs cool, no? So why not wear a loose skirt that can keep all of your legs and crotch cool? Shorts are for sports; they rhyme for a reason, and for going down the slide and running around a jungle gym with your toddlers. Other than that, shorts are not aesthetically pleasing after the age of 12. Even the .5% of New Yorkers, maybe it’s a little higher in select neighborhoods, with pretty legs look trampish or annoyingly vain. Perhaps a small percentage of my disdain for shorts is rooted in envy, but my dissertation conclusion is as follows: shorts belong on prepubescent legs, athletes that get paid, moms who slide or tunnel with their toddlers, and a group of tired, disappointed Americans sitting on St. Patrick’s Cathedral’s steps to remind New Yorkers why we don’t wear shorts.