Sunday 5 November 2017

Me vs A Radical Alteration of Self Perception

I recently lost my all my bras, by which I mean all of my comfy ta-ta tamers basically called it quits at more or less the same time. (Although once I did actually "lose" a bra. It still confounds me, as I'm confident I never disrobed somewhere without meaning to and just forgot it.)

One hooter harness spontaneously lost a strap on the way home from a work event, leading to some awkward convos with my carpool buddy. Two of them decided at roughly the same time that having elasticity was for chumps, and three others just never fit but I've been holding onto them because they were pretty, although otherwise shitty at their one job.

I needed to go shopping.

I don't hate shopping, per se, but I also don't love it. There are however, three things I despise shopping for....bathing suits, jeans, and bras. They never fit, they rarely look good, but they are wardrobe staples so every few months I have to brave the mall in order to replace some crucial thing or another.

In an effort to lessen the trauma, my husband suggested I actually try measuring the girls to make the process a little more streamlined. This was probably in part an attempt to reduce the overall time he needed to wait for me while wandered aimlessly around the stores hoping the right one would just fall off the wall and land perfectly on my chest. 

So I found a reputable website with instructions on proper techniques, and I went to work. I won't describe it in detail, but just know it wasn't graceful.  They had me measure in several positions; it was like yoga with a tape measure. The website warned me about "sticker shock" and claimed that most women are basically shit at finding the right bra fit, but I've been essentially the same size since puberty, so I wasn't expecting much. 

To be clear, I wouldn't consider myself well endowed. At all. To put it in perspective, in middle school a classmate looked at me and asked patronizingly if I slept on my stomach all the time. It took me a second to realize what she was implying and come to terms with what a spectacular bitch she was. Unfortunately given that I was only 13, I lacked the courage/mental agility to tell her to go fuck herself, however I now take solace in the fact that at least I CAN sleep on my stomach. 

So,  to summarize, I have generally headed towards the A aisle of the bra world. I expected the measurement calculator to spit out something roughly supporting that (<-- amazing boob pun).
But it didn't. It came back with a D.  My worldview was drastically altered. I would have been less shocked to discover my cat was actually a small racoon. You mean the world economy IS controlled by lizard people? That would be less shocking than going from an A to D. 

After I stopped laughing hysterically at the impossibility of this new size, I headed off to the mall to find a bra store. My plan was to avoid any and all sales people, and quietly try on a D or two. Just to see. I expected it to feel like a small child crawling into an adult sized sleeping bag. 

However, in a mind-blowing turn of events, the D fit like a damn glove. I spent a ludicrous amount of time in the change room trying to pick my jaw up off the floor. I'm sure that the sales woman was a bit concerned.  I ended up buying three pairs right there.

Still in a daze I went to the next store, where the sales woman came up and asked me if I needed help, I said yes. The exchange went more or less how I expected:

Her: Can I help you find a size?
Me: Yes, I'd like a 34D please
Her: Um, that seems a bit big sweetie. You're definitely not that big. No,  maybe a B at most. Definitley nothing bigger.
Me: I'll try both sizes.

After I got past her decided lack of tack, I tried them on and she came in to see how they fit. This woman could not contain her amazement. As someone who is paid to fit boobs into bras all day, she could not get over how the D fit and the B did not. I'm still not sure if I should be flattered or insulted. Mostly I'm still shocked. 

So, if you'd like to rock the very foundations of your self perception, I highly recommend measuring yourself especially if you've never really measured them or if it's been a long time.  If nothing else, the girls will thank you.