Things Women Do | QuirkOut

We don’t have to tell you that women love clothes. Just look in our closets — they’re stuffed tighter than Joan Rivers face. Maybe it’s in our DNA. Or maybe it’s our GPS that we programmed to find sales at the mall.

But our troubles only begin in the dressing room when we’re whispering “please fit, please fit, please fit, I think I love you” to the clothes we’re trying on.

Eventually we have to take care of all these beautiful garments if we want them to last until the next trend. There’s tailoring, cleaning and folding, oh my.

So hang with us and let these QuirkOut ideas teach you about things women do to take care of their clothes.

STRIP TEASE CLEAN

Sandra Martin, executive editor of Today’s Parent magazine and website (todaysparent.com), deals with parenting topics all day long at work, only to go home and face parenting dilemmas at home.

One of the biggest issues moms face is how to get dressed for work while getting through the battlefield of messy mornings. 

Sandra’s QuirkOut advice, “Shower and put on your underwear and pantyhose — and a robe.” Half-naked, she feeds the baby, packs lunches, cleans up the kitchen and prays today is the day she avoids the shrapnel exploding from the applesauce cup lids.

At the last minute, she strips off the robe, changes into work clothes and hustles the kids out the door. Instant Superwoman — no phone booth required.

GOING TO GREAT LENGTHS

Wendy Williams and Snooki (NOT Katie Couric)

We love talk show host Wendy Williams. She’s big and bold and beautiful. But being the tall girl requires QuirkOut adjustments. At a height of 5-foot-11, she’s challenged to find jeans that are long enough.

So she buys two pair of the same jeans, and then heads to the tailor. Using the bottoms of the first pair, he sews them to the bottom of the second pair to add length. Voila! The pants don’t look like she waded through water following Anderson Cooper into a natural disaster.

Wendy, we can’t stop wondering what happens to the pair that got cut off. You probably turn them into shorts. But in case there’s a lonely, shorter pair in your closet, we suggest a denim Ponzi scheme. Team up with fellow talk show host Katie Couric. She’s only 5-foot-1, and you can literally give her a hand-me-down.

IRON DEFICIENCY

When she was growing up, Luella watched her mother iron her dad’s dress shirts every Sunday night. She was amazed how each one came out looking crisp and beautiful. With a role model like this, you’d think Luella would have learned how to master the steaming beast.

But no. Luella will go to great lengths (and great dry cleaning costs) never to plug in her Rowenta. 

She came up with a QuirkOut system to help de-wrinkle her life. At the end of the day, Luella hangs up her clothes on the shower rod and lets her teenage daughter’s insanely long showers do their magic.

Of course, it may take a week to get the job done, so the clothes begin to stack up. She hangs up blouses, skirts, scarves and even belts.
Suddenly it looks like a rack in a second-hand store.

The system isn’t perfect, and the long showers aren’t exactly environmentally friendly. But Luella figures she spends less on the water bill than on the dry cleaning bill. You know — it all comes out in the wash.

Quick. Count how many belts are in your closet.

Ten? Twenty? More?

If you’re like us, you have hundreds. Thick, thin, leather, vinyl, plain and even plaid. If you have a macramé version, your age is showing — go directly to Goodwill, do not pass “Go.”

The Fashion Police issued citations because our collection includes belts made from comic strips and license plates. We’ve even spent hours squinting while needle-pointing belts for our husbands. And we don’t think we’re the only gals who keep every single one of those cheesy cheap belts that come with dresses on cheap and cheesy hangers.

How did we end up getting lost in the Belt Jungle? Because we took a detour at Fashion Island, populated by stylists and skinny skinny models who look great with leather-cinched waistlines.

So buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Join us for QuirkOut moments and things women do to get this trend under their belt.

MOVING DAY

On “What Not to Wear,” Stacy and Clinton teach us that to look good in our clothes, we don’t actually have to have a waist (thank goodness, we lost ours at the Olive Garden years ago), we only need to create the “illusion” of a waist.

A belt is the best tool of the trade to transform us from SpongeBob SquarePants into a Barbie doll.

But what looks great in the mirror in the morning starts twisting, turning, falling and making you crazy enough to belt out, “Stop the Insanity.” And that’s just by the time you arrive at the office.

First it rides up to your belly, cutting off circulation and making you look like a cross between the Michelin man and Pam Anderson with emphysema. Or it slips down to your crotch, making you look like you forgot to leave the seatbelt in the car where it belongs.

The buckle moves to your left side, then you move it to your right, then you turn it all around. It’s like doing a leather version of the “Hokey Pokey.” But our QuirkOut advice is don’t ‘shake it all about” or the guy from accounting will think you’re ready to go on a date with him after all.

SO MANY BELTS, SO FEW THAT FIT

Those of us who battle the bulge know the frustration with buying belts to fit at your waist, only to gain a few pounds and find you actually bought a tourniquet.

Jessica knows this struggle well and has come up with a QuirkOut solution.

She explains, “As my weight fluctuates, I store the belts in Goldilocks fashion. One box says “Belts — too big” and another box says “Belts — too small.” The ones that are “just right” get to live in my closet until I break up with my boyfriend and go on a Haagen-Dazs binge. Then the “too bigs” come back to the closet and those in the closet go to “too small.”

The only way we can improve Jessica’s system is to add a note inside the “too small” box reminding her to lay off the porridge.

MARKING MY TERRITORY

Jayelle Hughes, author of “Men Don’t Matter” (which is a big hit at the divorce support group), does not like to repeat outfits. Even when it comes to her jeans. As a freelance writer who works from home, jeans are a staple. But even then, she wants to wear a different pair every day.

Her QuirkOut solution is simple. She leaves her belt in the last pair she wore, as a kind of signal flag that screams, “Danger. Do Not Repeat.”

What a simple way to keep track. It makes us think that we should somehow label those ex-husbands in the same way. Sorry to hit below the belt, guys.

We hate to air our dirty laundry in public, but, boy, do we have dirty laundry.

No, we’re not talking about mistakes from our college years. We mean sheets, underwear, socks and, on those rare occasions, workout clothes.

Like something out of a sci-fi movie, the laundry pile seems to double in size every time we turn around. Just imagine what’s at the bottom of that mountain. Since we’ve lost our marbles, maybe that’s where they’ll turn up.

Maybe we’d get motivated if we thought of it as exercise: running up and down to the basement is cardio; lifting the Costco-size liquid All is good for the pecs, and bending to get the clothes from the dryer is a full ab workout.

We admit there were times when we couldn’t get the laundry done and just bought new clothes to get us through the week. To keep you from the same fate, we spoke to Sandra Martin, executive editor of Today’s Parent. Here are her QuirkOut tips to put in the rinse cycle and then tumble dry.

Is the End Near?

Sandra is always trying to reach the unreachable goal. She wants to achieve Laundry Zero.

Is this some clue to unlock the DaVinci Code? Nope. It means that all the laundry is done. Nothing in the hamper. Nothing on the bathroom floor. Nothing shoved under the kids’ mattresses next to unsigned report cards.

It’s a great concept. But for us, it’s as elusive as reaching the Last Five Pounds Zero or Husband Stops Snoring Zero.

In the meantime, we happily follow Sandra’s QuirkOut fluff-and-fold tip. She sorts socks according to color, then puts them into mesh bags. The bag goes into the washer, then into the dryer. Then she tosses them to her kids.

“We bring the laundry into the living room and make a game out of it,” she says. Getting the kids to fold towels with the same gusto as playing Mario Kart on the Wii makes everyone happy.

Sandra assures us that when kids get into the habit of helping, they get better at it. So congratulations, Sandra. You turned the tide on a dirty job by turning it into a teachable moment.

Sticking to our Story

We know there isn’t a Nobel Prize awarded for making laundry easier, but if there were, we’d nominate the person who invented the Tide Stick.

It’s a lifesaver on messy men who insist on ordering barbecue ribs — and on vacation, when your children’s ice cream cones melt faster than the travel budget.

And at the office, Sandra explains. “Working moms are trying to get so much accomplished that they go nonstop. Which means eating lunch at their desks.”

We know these multitasking mamas. Their desks are so covered in crumbs that a family of five could eat off of the keyboard for a week. One drip of nonfat salad dressing on their blouses and they whip out the Tide Stick hidden in their desks. Miraculously, the stain disappears as quickly as their Lean Cuisines.

If only it were as easy to clean up after Frank in accounting — he’s the one who spilled the beans about the boss’s messy workplace affair.

Not-So-Great Expectations

“Life with kids is a roller coaster, and you’re never in control of anything for very long,” Sandra explains.

Her QuirkOut advice is to scale back expectations.

We’re all for that. And we vote to start with the ironing. Buy chic linen clothes that are actually supposed to be wrinkled. And think knits, even for cocktail dresses.

Sandra reminds us, “Don’t iron sheets, which get wrinkled the minute you get into bed,” she says. “I figured out I can be a perfectly functioning person with wrinkly sheets.”

We can live with wrinkles in our beds, too, thank you, Sandra. But not on our foreheads, thank you, Botox.

Fashion icon Coco Chanel said, “Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury.” 

Clearly, Ms. Chanel never met the $900 Jimmy Choo stilettos that send many a well-heeled woman to the podiatrist.

Too often, looking really good can mean feeling really bad.

Other times, we don’t realize until we’re out and about that things are going to get bad. Like on an overseas flight when it occurs that buying the “irregular-sized” thong at the outlet mall wasn’t a good idea.

Since we agree with Billy Crystal’s mantra, “It is better to look good than to feel good,” we know that QuirkOut stamina is needed when sacrificing comfort for compliments.

Belt It Out

The Wall Street Journal has us cringing. A recent article (“Tight Ties, Killer Heels: Clothes Make the Fashion Victim“) warned that our clothing is causing real damage — to something other than our bank accounts.

The story reports on a woman who saw a neurologist for numbness in her legs. His expert diagnosis: Her belt was too tight. It compressed a major nerve with a long Latin name. But luckily she’s in good company. The doctor says this happens to police officers who carry guns on their hips and ballet dancers who wear tight tutus.

Now the American Chiropractic Association says women should carry no more than 10 percent of their body weight in their purses or risk extreme back pain. Only 10 percent? We have 30 percent in our wallets alone, thank you FroYo customer loyalty punch cards.

We appreciate the warnings, although we probably won’t heed them. Especially if our skinny jeans make us look like we’re 16 years old again. How about we make the QuirkOut promise to loosen our tutus?

GoodBuy Girl

Roberta loves to combine her love of clothes with her love of a good deal. Normally this is a match made in heaven — until it creates discomfort from hell.

Take the Norma Kamali outfit she bought at Walmart. The designer outfit was gorgeous and cheap, but they were out of her size, so she settled for the dress in an 8.

Roberta explains, “In the morning, I’m fine, and the tight dress forces me to sit up straight. At lunch I’m so squeezed that I order water and a toothpick. By 5 p.m. I pray I can make it to my car before the seams split and I’m naked.”

We’ve all made QuirkOut bargains with ourselves in the dressing room to justify a bargain buy. “I’m just bloated today,” or “Spanx will fix this” and the mother of them all, “I can lose 10 pounds by the party next weekend.”

The Wax Museum

When it comes to beauty, we’d like to wax poetic. But there’s no poetry in having burning hot wax applied to the most sensitive parts of your body, then having it ripped off with the intensity of a Navy Seal on a mission.

There are rumors that bikini waxing began as a form of torture used during the Crusades, but we have no proof. What we know for certain is that this is pain only women could endure — like childbirth.

And, if the pain doesn’t do you in, the humiliation will. After all, the aesthetician goes places where husbands aren’t even allowed to venture.

So follow our QuirkOut tips for the pain — drink a vodka martini in the waiting room, bite your lip during the procedure and at the end, scream out like Steve Carell when he got his chest hair waxed in the movie “The 40 Year Old Virgin.” For the record, we don’t shout “Kelly Clarkson,” we shout “Bradley Cooper!”

What clothes do you have that create pain?