Manly Muffin Tops

Over the course of the past 5 years, the tables have turned. In a bad way. Well, they were already bad to begin with, but they are so much worse now.


-So what's the, what's the, what's the scenario? Yo-

Spare me a moment of absolute blunt-ness. In the past week, I've seen more extremely lower man-back than I had seen my entire life.

So... 5 years ago I was in college. At that time, I started noticing that a lot of women were wearing shirts that were not long enough on the bottom to reach the top of their pants. So there was a gap, ranging from 1 to about 8 inches, of what I felt to be unintentionally-showing-to-the-public skin. I'm sure in some cases, this skin was intentionally shown... however, in most cases I know for a fact this was unintentional. ...At least it should have been (the dreaded case of the "muffin top" out the top of the jeans... had better be unintentional. NO ONE in their right mind wants to EVER see a muffin top. For those of you who don't know, the muffin top is basically that layer of fat around the mid-section that sticks out of the top of the jeans and hangs over the top edge. Not good. I realize most Americans are at least a little bit overweight... and the first place this "over-weight" shows itself is in the hips/waist. So why draw attention to that part of the body by revealing it, unless it's nice to look at? No one wants to see this fat! Anyway...)



But, a couple of years ago, we started to see more women who were figuring this out. The trend in muffin tops declined (Hooray!) due to the introduction of the longer-undershirt. So, the tops women are wearing are still the same length, the jeans are still lower cut, but the extra layer of the (normally white) longer undershirt has been added to cover up this bare skin that no one wanted to see.

KUDOS TO WOMEN FOR FIGURING THIS OUT AND DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!

One of the most traumatic days of my life also happened to be the day that I happened to see the worst case of a muffin top I've ever experienced. If you don't want to know about this most-painful-of-days, skip the rest of this paragraph. So... a co-worker and I were in San Francisco for work a couple of years ago, and we decided to get tickets to the baseball game that night, Giants v. D-Backs. Our seats were out in right field on the bleachers and most of the seats were full in that part of Pac-Bell. During the bottom of the 1st inning, 2 girls showed up and had seats about 3 rows in front of us. They each had a beer in their hand. However, it didn't look like they needed the beers, as the taller of the 2 girls was already having trouble keeping her balance and was REALLY loud. She also happened to have a bad case of Creeping Muffin Top. I'm sure being drunk didn't help with the growing muffin top... she didn't seem to notice it at all and with her presumably out-of-normal swaying and moving, she eventually worked her way to the absolutely Biggest Muffin Top I have ever seen... the gap between the bottom of her top and the top of her low-cut jeans had easily reached a full 12 inches. And she had a healthy layer of fat to keep that revealed part of her body warm, which made it that much worse to behold. The top just kept going higher and the pants just kept sliding lower... And she just kept getting drunker. And with a crowd that was probably 80% dudes... well, you can imagine that basically everyone in the crowd was staring at her. Praying... hoping... but no. The muffin top was there to stay. This experience scarred me. Luckily, experiences like this involving women have decreased dramatically over the past few years.

Not that I'm on an outright crusade against muffin tops, but I WOULD say that I am 100% anti-muffin tops. Maybe you could say that I've been leading a SILENT crusade against muffin tops. You know, the lead-by-example type of crusade. Lesson learned: muffin top + alcohol = bigger muffin top. Simple enough.

Ok, so the women have figured out that to cut down on muffin tops, they just have to add this little lengthy undershirt - easy enough. But in the past week, there has been an alarming trend - now, it's the guys who are taking a turn muffin topping.


-What? No way! Guys are NOT muffin topping!-

Oh, YES THEY ARE. Let me share. I just started my first class at ASU last week. One of my classes happens to be a 1,000-student lecture, in a theater/auditorium. Me being me, I am required to sit on the back row very near the door. This gives me a great perspective to people-watch. Anyway, I started noticing (NOT GIRLS, BUT GUYS!) showing up with muffin tops. Not just one here or there... I'm talking like 20-30 per day. Guys showing up to class and then when they sit down, this big muffin top just shows up out of nowhere (they glow in the semi-dark auditorium, so they're really easy to see...).

And last night I was at dinner with some friends at a little restaurant. I didn't notice until about 20 minutes into the meal, but sitting behind one of the girls in our party was a particulary large man, with an equally large muffin top showing out the back of his chair. I whispered to my friend sitting next to me, "Hey, don't look now, but... there's something you really DO NOT want to see in that direction [pointing]" This girl's response was (in a loud, almost angry whisper), "OH, I KNOW! I SAW IT ABOUT 10 MINUTES AGO. ISN'T THAT DISGUSTING?" Then the girl sitting on the other side of me leaned over and asked what we were talking about... I pointed again, and without even having to turn her head, she said, "EW! I ALREADY SAW. NASTY! SOMEONE SHOULD TELL HIM."

And one final experience from this past Sunday... I went to a different church congregation than normal, and while sitting on the very last row [again, my usual seat...], happened to notice the worst male muffin top I have seen to date (but keep in mind, I hadn't seen any to note up until a week ago...). A guy who was dressed in a nice button-down shirt and khakis, matching shoes/belt, and a shiny new black leather jacket was showing about 8 inches of his extremely lower back through the metal chair to everyone behind him. It was absolutely disgusting. He should have known better. In fact, the only row of seats in the entire room that had no one sitting in it, turned out to be the row directly behind him and his poor wife. About 5 minutes into the service, in walked a young family - parents and 2 children. Since the only seats available were in the special-row-right-behind-manly-muffin-tops, the family seated themselves there. No less than 10 seconds after sitting down, the wife noticed the muffin top and I heard a very slight shriek out of her. Her 3-yr old son was sitting directly behind the muffin top and had one hand grabbing the top of the man's pants and pulling them out, to reveal EVEN MORE skin. Luckily the mother caught the boy before the man noticed... who knows what sort of fury would have burst forth from the muffin top guy had the muffin top actually been touched. Luckily the mother found a large piece of posterboard that she had brought to church for a lesson, and she placed it directly behind the muffin top, concealing it from view. And you could just tell the 3-yr old had never seen anything like it with how he kept staring at it.....

This is a trend that just didn't used to happen. I recall in elementary school, there was always the lazy, slobby kid in your class (usually accompanied by a snotty nose), and if you were anywhere behind him while he was sitting down, you couldn't help but notice what brand of underwear he had on. (I need to insert a disclaimer here: I am NOT a bum-looker [to quote an old SNL...]. Sometimes you just can't help but notice things...). BUT, you almost never saw an actual muffin top. This is yet another sign of the declining morals in our society.


-But why are GUYS doing the Muffin Top?-

That's the whole reason for the blog post today. I am dumb-founded. I have no answers.

Have guys not remembered the negative reactions they had when the women were muffin topping? I mean, it's like a gag reflex when you see one. Really, it's the type of bad experience I don't wish on even my worst enemies... even they deserve better than that.

I can only think I've been put on this earth for one reason: to call attention to anyone who has a muffin top (and this appears to be mostly guys right now). We need to increase muffin top awareness and stop them in their tracks. Join me in this crusade against the muffin tops!

Tribute to ___________ ?

There is so much that this picture inspires in me... but today I'm flipping the tables. I want to know the first thought that runs through YOUR head when you see it. I won't edit any comments, so just listen to your heart on this one and post away.

Forsaking the High Five

Today marks the five year anniversary of a big day - the day that I forsook high fives. Normally, I don’t celebrate the yearly anniversary for the day that I forsook high fives, but if there is one anniversary to celebrate for the forsaking of high fives, it should definitely be the fifth.


- Impact of a high five -

“FIVER!!!!” Nothing says “lame frat-boy” quite like hearing someone behind you yell “fiver!” and when you turn around they have one hand in the air waiting for you to slap it. This situation just makes me cringe.



The worst situation possible is after you tell a funny joke, everyone within ear shot is laughing, you are feeling good about yourself due to the quality of the joke and the fact that the group has agreed that it was funny, and then someone attempts to give you a high five. This just absolutely kills all the good feelings you were having about yourself for the joke. In fact, you would have been better off not venturing out of your shell to begin with, because you basically just had your self esteem flattened by some inconsiderate jerk who apparently thinks high fives add value of some sort.

High fives are also used a little too much on first dates. And basically any group date where the guys are trying to make the girls feel “special”. This is painfully obvious when you see a young group of kids bowling … when the girl who has never bowled before (easy to tell) finally DOESN’T throw a gutter-ball, and she is awaited by 4 guys with their hands waiting in the air for her to slap. Gag me with a spoon. These guys are just trying to get a little bit of cheap, unwarranted physical contact with anything that has legs. Nothing says “desperate for cheap physical contact” quite like a high five. And… it’s only guys in the group who are high fiving each other, that just screams “homo-erotic” a little bit, doesn’t it?

[side note: normally “gag me with a spoon” would be the topic of the blog. But since I haven’t heard it in use for the past 15 years, I figured it would make a good comment in this blog. “Gag me with a spoon” has remained buried for the past 15 years, but why hasn’t the high five???]


- What’s wrong with the high five ? -

We need to pass some legislation around the use of high fives. And by “legistlation”, I mean, let’s just make them 100% illegal. There is never a good time for a high five. (ok, one exception to every rule I make is that it’s always ok to break the rule if you are making fun of someone else. And if you’re dealing with small children, high fives are also acceptable. Small children have a couple of exceptions to rules that apply to adults – high fives is the first, the other would be use of the word “buddy”. If another adult calls me “buddy” he had better be prepared to have his teeth reworked. Same goes for adult high fivers.)

High fives are a little too 1984, which means we might expect them to finally be gaining in popularity in Japan. The problem is that, in my head, high fives seem to fit in with images of feathered hair, pegged pants and Converse Skidgrips. Maybe another problem is that when I was searching for fitting high five images this morning on the web, it seemed like every website that had a high five picture was one of those “make money now, fast!” websites.

And if it has become the style again to start slapping high fives, then what happened to the pegged pants and the feathered hair (which both happen to be popular in Japan)? If you’re gonna bring back a style, you need to bring it all back. Otherwise, it just seems really out of place. The high five definitely is out of place in our society right now.


- In conclusion –

My brother just walked through the room and asked what the blog topic for today is, and when I indicated High Fives, he thought it would be controversial, at the least. “I love to high five. Although I also use a luffa…” (please refer to previous blog on luffas/loofahs).

I guess I don’t need to say anything more, since he basically summed up everything I wanted to say with that one statement.