NO CULOTTES!

I'm sorry, did I not say that loud enough? I said, NO CULOTTES! I swear, culottes are the work of the Devil. And I don't want to hear any guff about riding bicycles or horses or whatnot -- a real lady can ride a bicycle in an actual skirt, not some bastardized waste of fabric designed to bunch where things shouldn't bunch and split where things shouldn't split.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but someday I think we'll find out that the same secret Trilateral Commission/Knights Templar/Elks Club-type group is responsible for culottes, carob, that guy you always think is Bill Paxton but isn't, corn syrup, David Blaine, and the vice-presidency, and that only by refusing to wear culottes will we manage to thwart their evil plan. And you know it's evil if it involves culottes.

In fact, I'm wondering if some misguided misogynist too chicken to show off his spindly shanks in a Utilikilt (guys: if you have the legs for this, it is a "do"--except not the leather one, eeewwww), in some fit of rage, designed the culotte. "If I can't wear a skirt, no one can!" (Cue evil laughter, the kind that ends up in an asthmatic coughing fit, and a "no, no, really, I'm okay, I just need a sip of water.")

You know, the lesson of the culotte is this: be what you are. If you're a skirt, embrace the skirtiness of your essential being. If you're a pair of pants -- deal with it. Don't be straddling that pants/skirt fence. Don't be a sartorial mugwump. Choose a side, dammit! (The culotte does not have a side. It is all middle.)

(I'm very tempted to buy this pattern from eBay, just to make sure no one makes it. Like those police programs where they trade baseball tickets for guns. And, did you notice how none of the women in the illustrations have a direct gaze? Do you know why? Shame over being forced to wear culottes, that's why. Shame.)

So, one more time for the cheap seats: NO CULOTTES!