Sep 11, 2012
From The Files Of Whatever Happened To?
Once upon a time, Bossy’s parents had a friend who lived in an enormous house with many of those things called rooms.
And in this enormous house with rooms, there lived a meat scale dressed as an industrial hairdryer with attached seatbelt:
It was a vibrating weight loss machine, but back in the 1950s it was known as a Vibrating Weight Loss Machine. The idea was to strap the belt around those areas of the body with a tendency to jiggle, allowing the vibrations to stimulate circulation, which loosened fat cells and improved muscle tone.
And Bossy climbed right on that machine belonging to the family friend and gave it a try. And it must have worked! Because in only the few minutes Bossy could tolerate her vertebrae dropping out of her sacroiliac, she looked like this!
My grandmother’s sister, also known as my great aunt, had one of these contraptions.
(It may surprise Bossy to hear that it didn’t work except to make us–I mean her– laugh, which may have burned off a few excess calories.)
Bossy and her readers may enjoy this…
Body shaping in the machine age, 1945.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek6tHGvTT74&feature=related
Earth Shoes!!
In 1978 I was attempting to lose my college-stress-induced weight gain so I wouldn’t look like a giant marshmallow in my wedding dress. Gloria Stevens Weight Loss salon had some of those machines. No way was anyone going to see my thighs jiggle in public.
EARTH SHOES! I was a lab technician. Mine were white
Bossy darling, those aren’t earth shoes but cowboy boots.
Please.
That above is incase it is still 10 word Tues. If not I would like to add, that you would now kill for these very broken in very authentic boots.
Not sure if she would still fit in those boots Mom. But it does look like the horse got the better end of the deal.
Dear Bossy’s Mom, those cowboy boots have yellow laces. Nuh-uh. Earth Shoes.
Those jiggle machines were more of a nightmare than a dream, weren’t they?
my mom is convinced one of those machines is responsible for my existence. let me ’splain:
after being told she would not be able to get pregnant due to excess scar tissue from endometriosis my parents adopted two children. then sometime in early 1971 mom went to a gym with one of these fancy machines to try out the shakey shakey. shortly after that she thought she was in (VERY) early menopause so she went to the doctor only to discover that she was 3 months pregnant with little old me.
to this day, she is convinved that machine shook some of the scar tissue loose allowing me to break through.
so, i guess it didn’t help anyone lose weight, but maybe it helped a few women get pregnant (or not)
Wooo! It’s been awhile (lit, “a year”) since I was here…the new text-picture storytelling style is SWEET! And, as always, the humorpunch that is your phrasing and timing was viciously satisfying. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to be seen snorting furiously whilst trying to supress laughter @ work
Earth shoes!
BTW, I heart Bossy’s Mom. Heart.
Don’t they have yellow laces in Wyoming?
oh O.K.
Earth shoes! Young Bossy had the cutest little hippie feet I’ve ever seen!
Sorry, have to say it again, Earth Shoes!
They had those fat jigglers at the Deseret Gym here in Utah when I was a kid. My friends and I enjoyed watching the ladies use them.
Everytime I see one of those machines I think of I Love Lucy. And I had earth shoes….but I hated mine. Did anyone ever have those clunky shoes with the wavy soles? Famolares?