A Tale of Two Cankles

"Did you see the new Old Navy commercial for ankle pants?"  My BFF, Ms. A, asked not-so-casually the other day while perusing the mall.

"Yes!"  I responded glumly.  I knew where this was headed.

A. giggled to herself, "I saw it and thought of you."

Oh A. she knows me so well.  Not twenty-four hours earlier, I was sitting on my couch, pounding my fists angrily in to the air.

"Why!?  Why, must you torment me with your cute ankle pants?!?"  I angrily shouted at the Old Navy commercial that was gleefully mocking me from my TV screen.

Eric barely glanced up from his crossword puzzle.  He chuckled and muttered, "I'm sorry, baby."

I didn't need to explain what had angered me.  Eric knew.  The same way A. had known when she saw the commercial and thought of me.

Embarrassing confession?  I have cankles!

Cankles: a serious condition where poor unfortunate souls, such as myself, lack ankles.  Instead, my calf goes straight into my foot thus making my legs look like pasty, white tree trunks.  Exacerbating the situation even more?  I have teeny-tiny feet, which only make my cankles look even more enormous.

Due to this embarrassing condition, I can not wear ankle pants, capris, most shorts, or most skirts.  Also, unless I am wearing (ankle-covering) pants, I can not wear flats.  If I do wear a skirt, I must try to disguise my cankles by  wearing the highest pair of heels I can muster without falling flat on my face.

 Which is why I get angry every two or three years when ankle pants come back in style.  I find them too adorable to resist.  Each time I delude myself into thinking I can pull off the look.  I try to channel Audrey Hepburn, but instead end up with Ms. Piggy.

I haven't always had cankles.  At one point my legs had a shape. (Other than log shape that is.)  But for some reason, once I passed age 15, my cankles sprouted.

Many people associate cankles with heavy-set women.  I'm living proof that this is a fallacy.  Even when I weighed 110 lbs, (ha ha!) I had cankles.  Although I must add that pregnancy brought my cankle situation from a code yellow to a code red!

After the latest Old Navy mockery, I searched high and low for a solution to my cankle problem.

I found this:  www.byebyecankles.com

Thank the Baby Jesus for inventing the Internet!  Maybe this year will be the year of the ankle pants after all.

Don't you love my ankle pants?
Too bad! You can't wear them!
Sucker!