The (Un)Fairer Sex

I try to be a calm person - zen and all that - but I'm almost always irritated at school drop-off.

Maybe it's because I've just spent the past hour making sure that my four kids are fed and dressed in reasonably-coordinating, weather-appropriate clothing and not looking like victims of parental neglect. (And, like, yelling "PUT YOUR SHOES ON!" over and over until I'm hoarse.)

Maybe it's because there are a handful of assholes (ewwww, sorry for the visual) who insist on parking in the DROP OFF LANE which is the lane for DROPPING OFF and not the PARKING LOT where you are supposed to PARK.

Maybe it's because I didn't want to get out of bed due to being tired because I had to stay up late last night waiting to switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer. (And okay, watching some Netflix.)

But you know what irritated me today?*

*Besides perhaps a tiny smidge of PMS

How easy men have it in the looking-decent department. Especially men who are relatively attractive to begin with.

I was running behind this morning, so I essentially threw a coat on over my pajamas, stuffed my feet into a pair of boots, and ushered the kids into the minivan. Here's a bottom-half selfie:

Looking like Santa Claus's less-successful sister who has a painting business on the side. SMH.

The top half of me was wearing a disintegrating T-shirt from a gym that doesn't even exist any more, no makeup, glasses that are so loose they fall off my face when I bend over, and un-brushed hair skimmed back into a bun.

So here I was, dropping off my kids, praying there'd be no reason to get out of the vehicle, when I saw him in the crosswalk helping his daughter carry her Valentine box: Attractive Dad.

Ladies, you feel me. There's at least one at every school.

But this is what pissed me off: he was wearing sweatpants. Sweat. Pants. Yet he was still attractive. Attractive enough to garner furtive glances from all the moms in the drop-off lane. BECAUSE MEN DO NOT HAVE TO DO THE RIDICULOUS SHIT WE HAVE TO DO IN ORDER TO BE CONSIDERED ATTRACTIVE. And yes, I'm yelling.

Guys have a very small spectrum of appearance. From sweats to tuxedo is a narrow margin: basically only the outfit changes and the head stays the same. Sure, they can use gel or shave or get a trim or whatever, but those are minor tweaks that don't drastically alter their appearance. And to add insult to injury, some guys even look better when they let a little scruff grow on their faces (I'm talking five o'clock shadow, not Duck Dynasty).

It's not fair.

For women, there's a HUGE spectrum. On one end, you have sweats and no makeup and messy hair. On the other end, you have a dress and Spanx and hair dye and concealer and nail polish and all the other two hundred thousand appearance-enhancing things we're expected to make use of. Even if we're basically attractive as-is, we can still look like straight-up ass if we do absolutely nothing with ourselves. Men, on the other hand, are only as unattractive as their current outfit. They're like ... Ken dolls.

And nobody - NOBODY - has ever said to me, "Hey girl, why don't you let your leg hair grow out a little bit? A little scruff is sexy."

Hmmmph.

I know, I know, I know: we shouldn't care what we look like to others. If we dress up it should be for ourselves. But the woman who doesn't care what she looks like is a magical unicorn of not-giving-a-fuck. I want to be one of those magical unicorns; alas, I am not. I'm an "oh my Lord please don't let anyone notice that I need an eyebrow wax/am wearing pajamas/haven't brushed my hair since yesterday" type of person. I teach my sons to see the beauty in everyone, beyond their physical appearance, then lock myself in the bathroom and pluck chin hairs and cry over my deflated boobs.

Dudes will never realize how easy they've got it.




PSST - I'm about to have a giveaway from Boymom Designs! Stay tuned! :)