“You know it’s a bad day when you put your bra on backwards and it fits better.”–Unknown
The only thing worse than shopping for a new pair of jeans, is shopping for a bra. Both require you to stuff your junk into tight, conforming fabric that’s cut to fit a body type that doesn’t quite resemble the jiggle-jangles of your bodacious body.
Except, I don’t mind wearing pants (that is, if you consider leggings pants). But I’m fed up with bras.
I feel asphyxiated when I’m wearing a bra. Literally, sometimes I can’t breathe because the wire will dig into my rib cage or the whole apparatus will be too tight around my torso that I’ll start gasping for air, begging for a friend to make this bad boy a bit looser. Or how about when I’m wearing a sheer top and the nude-colored bra shines right through the shirt, screaming out, “HEY YOU GUYS, LOOK AT ME!”
It’s an attention grabbing, stage 5 clinging, suffocating relationship, and some days I just want out.
But recently, I had an altercation….
1. The tailor who was fitting me for my bridesmaid dress told me the cheapest way to make this garb stay up on my chest was just to just wear a stinking bra.
And an intervention….
2. Someone at work anonymously left a business card on my desk for “Moshe’s Bra Factory” on the Lower East Side with a post-it note that read, “Jen, It’s time you let Moshe do a miracle for you.”
That pressured me to swing open the doors of Victoria Secret and stumble into the arms of a lady with a thick unibrow and tomato colored lipstick slashed across her teeth. She was draped in tape measurers, wearing all black like she was the crypt keeper trying to size up my organs. She fluttered her eyelashes, called me baby doll, and convincingly asked me to tell her my cup size.
“Well, umm, this one is an A,” I said pointing to my right side as if I was proudly introducing my child to this foreign stranger, “And this one is a ….”
But before I could finish my sentence, this lady, whose name was Ivanka, was rounding second base, squeezing my water balloons like she was trying to drench a cake in icing.
“It would have been nice if you bought me dinner first,” I mumbled into her eyebrow.
“You’re a D, perhaps even a double D.”
“Excuse me?” I panicked. In horror. In utter disbelief. Maybe it was a language barrier. Maybe she got her alphabet mixed up. You know, when I was in the first grade, I had such trouble remembering the order of “R,S,T,U,V”, so I kind of just ruffled my words through that part of the alphabet song. Maybe she temporarily got her D’s and B’s mixed up. Common mistake. I’ll forgive her.
“You mean B, as in Bazooka, Bumblebee, Bee’s knees?” I pleaded with her.
She ushered me to the very back of the store to get acquainted with a display below a poster of busty models showcasing the “Body by Victoria” bra, a larger than life padded bra that made their chest stand out like it was in 3-D.
She hands me a 32 D bra with chicken cutlet padding inside, enough support that if I fell out of a plane and landed on my chest, I’d be just fine. Ivanka pats me on the butt and says, “No more loosey-goosey for you, my dear.”
I quickly left the store–robbed of $45 and slightly confused. Everything I thought I knew about my lovely lady lumps was just smacked around and heavily enlarged.
If there was ever a reason to become a bra wearing fool, it was that I never wanted to step foot in Victoria Secret again and have to get pounded like a piece of veal by my gal pal Ivanka.
But then, days later, I’m getting dressed for my friend’s wedding and the bra that’s supposed to keep my ant hills in place, falls down around my waist. My mammary glands are jiggling around in pure, unadulterated laughter. Chanting, “Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.”
Victoria has a secret and it’s that she is a liar.
