Monday, February 16, 2009

Pffft...

Okay boys, I'm warning you -- now is the time to bail. We're going to discuss the many and varied delights of bra fittings .

Flee now, before it's too late. The truth, it BURNS!!!

Ahem.

Okay. If anyone is still with me, yes, it's all about the boobage today. Specifically mine. Once upon a time I was a very clear 34D, but as anyone who's had even a glancing acquaintance with gravity can tell you, with age comes comes a bit of... well, there's no easy way to say it. Sag.

And when you throw two pregnancies (which put me up to a DD within about three minutes of conception), a combined total of 2.5+ years of breastfeeding (H-cup, anyone?), as well as a rather unfortunate weight gain and subsequent loss of same on top of all that, it can make the term "funbags" a bit more about the "bags" than the "fun".

The girls, they are not perky. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Only through the grace of underwire and superior engineering do I not resemble an Irish washerwoman.

Anyway, this past Saturday it was time to invest in some new support devices for my poor beleaguered darlings, so I dragged myself to the nearest department store, which blessedly was having a 40% off sale in the "intimates" department. I was approached by the ubiquitous little old lady who worked in the area, and when she saw me grabbing bras with "D" on the label, she gently said, "Dear, I don't think you're getting the right size..."

Now God love all l.o.l's, but I've heard this before. Last year, in fact, which was the last time I put myself through this hell.

"I'm really small through the ribcage, so I don't look like a D cup, but really the C's are too small."

"Well honey, you know we all get older. Here, let me measure you."

34D. Shock and awe.

Still, she put some C's onto the rack of bras I was dragging back to the fitting room because, "You just don't look that big, dear."

Twenty bras. Out of those, two fit. Sizes? 34D. Hah.

Now granted, they're coiled up like cinnamon rolls inside the cups (I'm more realistically described as a 34-long), and I'm sure redundant skin now counts for a large portion of the bulk, but still, it's pretty much predictable that the l.o.l. employee in the lingerie department is going to try to tell me there's no way in hell I'm a D, and it's only when she sees me coming out the bottom, over the top, and through the sides of her precious C-cups that she ever concedes that I might, perhaps, possibly have a clue what my damned bra size is.

There's also this little catch: a 34D is nothing like a 40D. The cup is smaller, because cup size is proportional to bandwidth. Furthermore when you're really small through the shoulders and ribs like I am, it camouflages things -- even moreso when you're rocking the hips of the afore-mentioned Gaelic ancestress.

Now all that said, it's always a good idea to have a proper bra fitting every year or so which is why I don't cringe outwardly when I see them hauling out the measuring tape. Back in college I was wearing C-cup bras, and convinced they were the right size even though for some reason the bottom of my bras never would consistently touch my ribcage. Then one day I was bra shopping and the omni-present l.o.l. measured me and said, "My dear, you're a 34-D. Put those C's back -- they'll never look proper."

Whaddaya know... bras CAN touch my ribcage! They just have to be the right size. Which now, still, is not a C.

3 comments:

Tycho Beresford said...

I'll never look at cinnamon rolls the same way again.

Mark said...

Uhhhh nope can't say it, I'll get in trouble.

Mauigirl said...

ROTFL! Great post. I can relate. I recently gained 20 lbs. (thought it was temporary but now that it's still here I had to admit it is here). And the old 38Cs didn't fit anymore. I didn't go for an official fitting and instead, lazy that I am, ordered some varying sizes off of Amazon.com of all places. I have finally realized I have morphed into a 40D. Sigh. I can't even fasten the old ones anymore.