This weekend I went shopping with Daisy. Often I like to shop for undergarments and often I drive my shopping partners nuts because I only wear matching sets. Finding matching sets isn’t always easy for me despite all those cute undercracker sets you see in Target. Those cute sets only come in size perky or petite, and this will surprise you, but I am neither.
I’ve been on a quest to find the right nude and white sets of undies. I’m sorry, this is TMI, but we are in the trenches now. Anyway, on my quest, I’ve recently purchased and worn a set of each, only to discover that the brassieres are at minimum a size too large, despite my having been measured by an “expert.” (“Expert” here means a shop girl holding a measuring tape and the measuring is done over the blouse, not “expert” like that high school football player who offered to “measure” me that one time because he “knows titties.”)
Daisy was off in the sized perky and petite bathing suits, rummaging for a suit for our pending Florida vacation, when a brassiere measuring “expert” approached me about the undergarments I was riffling through. “Would you like to try one of those?” she asked. “It’s the best brand. They fit like a dream.”
“Sure,” I said, because we all know that once a woman trails off into the bathing suit section, things can take a lengthy turn. It’s because women like being mean to themselves and criticizing all their perceived flaws, and I was going to let Daisy do that in peace because no amount of my telling her she’s perky and petite will make trying on a bathing suit any easier. What else was I going to do with my time but try on some bras? Plus, I was in the market for one.
The “expert” trundled me off to the dressing room to give me a thorough measuring and once she got a gander at my (super cute, almost perfectly fitting) bra, she began bellowing.
“WELL NO WONDER YOU ARE IN HERE. That bra fit is AWFUL. MY GOD, THIS IS TERRIBLE. You aren’t in the right size AT ALL. Look at that wide back! You need a triple D, with LOTS OF SUPPORT, GOODNESS!!!”
She waddled out of the dressing room after my thorough tongue-lashing during which I had to say, “Could you please not let everyone in the store hear my business? Could you please stop yelling?” and helped me select three bras. I picked the pretty ones and she picked the parachutes.
“Try these on,” she ordered. “They are meant to COVER THE BREAST UNLIKE THAT THING YOU HAVE ON THAT LETS THEM SHOW OUT THE TOP.” I clutched my three selections and shame-facedly made it back to the dressing room, me and my ill-fitted bosoms.
The first one, her selection, sure did fit like a dream, if a dream fits too large and droopy. My whole breast was swimming in there, and if any of you have breasts, you could have put one of yours off in there with mine. It isn’t often I put on an undergarment that is too large, but I have to say, that was heady stuff. I turned to the side to see how the breast just kind of pushed out from the body and then flopped over like a pancake on the lip of a plate. That was weird because my breasts don’t do that even on their own, even unfettered. I’m 44 but gravity hasn’t killed me yet.
The second one was just as bad. Maybe bigger in the cup size, though, and instead of making me look like I had pancakes for boobs, I looked like a little kid in my grandmother’s bra which was stuffed with pads and slightly pointy.
“How’s it going in there?” the sales lady hollered through the door.
“I look like a battle ax in these. I mean, the hooks on the back cover up the entire area between the top of my shoulder blade to the bottom of my rib cage. And the straps are like rip cords. Very sturdy and not at all flattering.” I was not impressed.
Neither was she. “YOUR ENTIRE BREAST IS FALLING OUT OF YOUR BRA. These are meant to be SUPPORTIVE, something you CLEARLY NEED.” I remembered how my breasts looked in my super cute, almost perfectly fitted t-shirt just five minutes ago when they were high and tight in my super cute, almost perfectly fitted bra and was puzzled.
I tried, though. “Sure, I’m with you, but this bra will stick out of my shirts because it comes up so high. The one I own is more of a lifter and separator, because I like my breasts placed in the breast region, not smashed down and covered to my neck, where, and this is weird, I don’t have any breasts. Does anyone have breasts up to their neck? Because this cup comes up to my neck.”
“You do what you want but I wear these all the time,” she sniffed, and then stiffly marched back to her cash register.
I tried on the pretty bra that I picked out and wouldn’t you know it really did fit like a dream. I didn’t look like a ‘ho, but then I didn’t look like Maxine either. I turned this way and that and admired how high and tight everything was, how I could breathe normally, how nothing fell out of the bottom, and then I took it off and hung it back on the hanger.
As I walked out of the dressing room, the sales lady called, “Did you like that one?”
“I did,” I replied.
“There is a free gift with purchase,” she enticed even though she was still offended.
“Ooh,” I mulled. “Is the free gift a matching panty?” I was intrigued and would have slapped down the ridiculous $65-per-bra lickety split if she had said yes. But she didn’t.
“No, it’s a lingerie bag. We don’t have matching panties for that bra.”
And that was that. Bra back on the rack, Daisy and I out, saleslady miffed.
That’s how it goes, folks. Never an easy answer for boobs like mine.
Love, Jimmie 