Nancy’s personal blog entry titled “R.I.P. Butt Mullet” was enough to catch one’s attention but we’re sure thankful she took the time to share it directly with us! Her post is a hilarious tribute to her unexpectedly most treasured skort from Title Nine. Read on for a good laugh and Nancy, if you have House Mullet success, don’t hold out! We’ve got to see it!

 

It all happened so fast. I never even saw it coming.

After ten years of service, my dog walking skort has died.

When I scooped the beige garment made of rip-stop nylon out of a bin at a Title 9 Warehouse Sale in Berkeley that put the “cray” in “crazy ass women trying to get a deal,” I little suspected how central a role it would play in my wardrobe. I was just looking for something to wear over a still-recovering post-pregnancy body on which only my legs looked the same as before (or the same as before, if before I wore varicose-vein striped stockings on my left leg.)

I confess: probably because I spent the ‘90s reading a lot of J. Peterman catalogs, part of me thought that the combination skirt/short design would be the perfect travel piece, something that would let me climb a mountain and then descend into a chic Moroccan restaurant without breaking my stride. When I thought I would go on that North African climbing/dining expedition I cannot say, but I felt a sense of peace knowing that I had just the right thing for when my schedule allowed such a trip.

A few years ago my kids got hysterical over a line from a kid’s TV show in which a character referred to a skort as a “butt mullet.” I accept it. I embrace it. Just like it takes a strong man to wear pink, it takes a strong woman to pull off a butt mullet.

I wore the skort frequently, but when the dog joined the family six years ago our together time really amped up. Achilles has to hike every day, and the skort in its match-everything-beigeness and unapologetic durability pushes me to choose it eight days out of ten.

The material is indestructible – I really think someone should study how this type of nylon could be used for FEMA housing. Dirt dries up and brushes off, which is good because I play a wicked game of Pinecone Fetch with the dog every time we hike, resulting in a stew of pinecone and mud and saliva that I have to wipe off my right hand repeatedly as we go.

And the pockets. Oh, the pockets. One for empty poop bags, one for house keys, one for the phone, all zippered tight so nothing gets lost. That’s reassuring as we scale up and down the ridge trail which is occasionally punctuated by a newly fallen redwood over which we scramble, or chance encounters with foxes or skunks from which we flee, the dog thinking “She’s slower! Take her! Take her!”

Most days when I pull on the skort, I intend to take it off again right after the hike and change into something more flattering and less Mom-ish. Those of you who have seen me in my butt mullet at the Safeway, at the book store, and at the dry cleaners know that I rarely do.

A few weeks ago I locked up the front door before heading out for the hills and dropped the key into the skort pocket, pulling the zipper to close it. The zipper stuck, but with some effort I got the pocket closed.

A day or two after that the zipper closed fine, but somewhere along the trail decided to open up from the bottom and resist all efforts to reclose it. I hurriedly moved all my valuables into the still-zipperable pocket and finished the hike listing at a 30 degree angle.

The next day the zipper hung off like a drunk from a streetlamp, and it was clear: the butt mullet’s reliability had been compromised. I could consult a tailor whose repair would cost more than I spent at the bargain bin, or say my farewells.

But maybe goodbye is premature. With our warm fall afternoons, I’ve been thinking it would be nice to have an awning stretched over the back porch. Maybe I can just unfurl a seam and give it a new life: House Mullet.

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