On Many Subjects

Which is great news for a certain segment of the population. That is people with heavy ankles. I must confess that I have heavy ankles. My mom has heavy ankles. My daughter has heavy ankles. Someone told my mom once that our state in life is the result of hailing from "sturdy peasant stock." That wasn't even remotely flattering no matter how many times I think about it. When I was in High School, I had a friend who teased me unmercifully about my heavy ankles; she being one of the skinny-limbed bitches. (On a side note, it gives me a moment of satisfaction every time I think about the fact that she had to drop out of high school for getting pregnant in an era when it was totally UNCOOL to do that. Karmic payback, I think.)

At any rate, I have found out they actually have a name for ankles that are the same size as the calf... cankles.

The area in affected female legs where the calf meets the foot in an abrupt, nontapering terminus; medical cause: adipose tissue surrounding the soleus tendon, probably congenital, worsened by weight gain and improved in appearance only by boots. From the English "calf" meaning wide portion of the lower leg, and "ankle" meaning slender joint of leg with foot.

I LOVE this one:

Also known as “peasant ankles” for the ostensible stability and hardiness afforded by the wide, steady base of the legs, which aids in long hours of tillage and harvesting. As such, the condition is most prominent in women of Russian or Italian ancestry.
It is the condition where the ankle girth is equal to or indiscernibly less than the girth of the widest part of the calf. It is not ankle fat per se, but rather a state of being “big-boned” in the ankle region while simultaneously experiencing gross muscle atrophy of the gastrocnemius.
Symptoms include: deep elastic grooves from socks, increased razor wear-and-tear, ability to reap 20 bushels of grain per hour.

Man 1: "That girl's wasting her time on the calf machine at the gym--there ain't no cure for cankles"
Man 2: "Hopefully she'll marry a farmer"

So, dear readers, I have learned to "disguise" my cankles with long pants, even in the summertime, and never, oh never, wear a dress unless it has a long skirt and I am wearing black hose. No shorts for me and I wear capris only in the privacy of my own home. Such fashion restrictions! And strappy shoes? Never. Totally cute shoes that tie around the ankle? Absolutely not! Short skirts? Not on your life!

What can you do about cankles? Nothing. If you have them, you are stuck with them and you will always be a pariah until society decides that cankels are more fashionable than the sleek and slender cousins of cankles that mini-shirt wearing women have.

But, the gods of the weather are shining down on us and making the earth colder so every woman with cankles can wear pants and not have to worry about heat stroke in the process.