06E049

Look Ma, I’ve got big boobs!

Recently, treating myself to a new bra, I went to an upscale store that actually measures you for your bra size. The measuring process was a bit embarrassing as it was done by what appeared to be a preschooler. I turned away from her, and stripped from the waist-up, which unfortunately meant facing the mirror; something I try to never do naked anymore. With measuring completed, to my utter amazement, preschooler announces that I am a 36D. What? I had been a 36B for the last umpteen years, blossoming to a D? Look Ma, big Boobs!!!

Ignoring that the child measuring me possibly was too young to know her alphabet, I was ecstatic about my newfound breasts. Sadly, I expected, even anticipated, the eventual up sizing in some garments: underpants, skirts, tops, even shoes, but in no way bras. I thought breasts-- akin to the male organ, and a marriage of twenty-six years should attest to this one, never increase in size.

As a half-empty glass kind of girl, the fascination of hefty bosoms soon deflated. I deduced two potential reasons for this upsurge in breast size: eventually fat has nowhere else to go, or flesh that had fallen from my neck and chest landed in my bra. But even with my super-sized bra, my breasts remained situated closer to my belly button than my chest. I sadly surmise that engineers could build the Golden Gate Bridge, but even with enough under wire to fence in a good-sized yard, couldn’t make a bra to keep our boobs off our laps. “Lift and separate,” HA!

I’m no engineer, but I have an idea to share with a bra designer; I’m calling it the Boob-N-Butt- Booster— and the name is negotiable. It’s a bra attached to a pair of underpants in the back, and the straps tying somehow to the top of the underwear. Pulling the straps and strings tight in the middle of your back, and with some manipulation, “Wa La!” it raises your boobs in the front, your butt in the

back , and—instant boob-N-butt gratification.

And while I’m at it, I want to “share” with swimsuit designers. I am sure they have good intentions; they just need a little sensitive communication like: “Designers, we women of age appreciate your efforts to help us look better. But, please listen. You’re self-proclaimed flattering suits with tummy tighteners, and slenderizing colors don’t camouflage what we desperately want to disguise. Geez, why do you think we’re all dressed in our three-quarter length sleeves, and Capris? Idiots! Our arms and thighs have gone to seed; we have our Mother’s body! Look, you ninety-five pound, teeny-boppers, make us look good again or I swear, as God as my witness, I will never go shopping again.” Umm, probably I should scratch some of that, maybe the shopping, and the teenybopper stuff. I had a little hot flash. Sorry—friends again?