April 24, 2010
I just paid $55 for a bra! It makes my bosoms look magnificent. Never mind the fact there is as much hardware on it as my minivan. Back fat is squished up and out of all edges like putting a rubber band around a bag of frosting but my breasts are riding high and firm!
I’m trying not to grimace at the folds and pleats on my body that weren’t there, well, yesterday when I had on a cheap bra that did little more than conceal a cold breeze. Who am I kidding? They were there, discreetly concealed under a shirt that is generous enough to hide that shit. Thank the heavens for BLACK anything. I am running my hands over the mounds willing them away. It’s an aggregate of moose tracks ice cream and vodka, carefully collected over the last 20 years. I’ve seen round butts and full bellies and on other women and they look curvy and natural and beautiful to me. But when the svelte clerk at Victoria’s Secret is scrambling to find something in a 38 DD that isn’t the color of somebody’s grandmother’s single-wide, I feel, well…
FAT, humongous, bulbous.
I know that somebody thinks I’m sexy, my boyfriend doesn’t complain, my friends think I’m hot so where is that nasty little bitch that is whispering, “that's disgusting!”? When I find her, I’m going to kick her sorry ass. I have beautiful green eyes and softly curled red hair. I am smart, funny, compassionate and sexy. Who cares if there are tufts of flesh bubbling up out of the confines of a bra that could undoubtedly hold up a Buick. 38DD is a respectable dimension, some Hollywood ladies pay good money for those measurements. Of course they mount those babies on a size two frame and they have the asses of 18 year old boys. Is that attractive? Must be, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry – objectifying women.
Once I take this thing off, out will pop the grapefruits in tube socks, oh boy! Only, they won’t pop; they will descend toward my navel and if I lay down, they will nest in my arm pits. Oh God, who thinks that is sexy? I want his cell number.
I console myself with a big fat Grey Goose and tonic. I remind myself that there is much more to me than my boobs or droopy ass. I am fun to be with, I am reliable, I can cook and I can steer a 40 foot dragon boat without puncturing yachts in the marina. I am a good mother, a good bank employee, a good sister, daughter, friend. My first husband blamed my size on his lack of sexual interest in me even though I gained just 15 pounds more than when we married. I am today 20 pounds heavier than that and as far as I can tell, there is at least one or two men who might want to see me naked… and no, I don’t have to give them money.
Last summer, I had a crush on a man on my dragon boat team. He was strikingly handsome and we flirted on a few occasions. When the team went to Victoria BC for races, I was thrilled that I might get to spend some time with him. One night at dinner, he was chatting and I overheard him say that he had not met any women recently that he was attracted to. That solved that puzzle – he had ample time and space to get to know me better on that trip, so if he was going to, he would have. Insecurity caked over me like wet mud.
At that same dinner, I left to use the ladies room. I had stopped to admire the artwork along the hallway when out of the men’s room came a young, handsome Canadian man. He bounced into me and said, “Excuse me!” I smiled and he started to talk to me.
“Are you a tourist?” Really? I am wearing an oversized red hoodie with a giant white maple leaf on it, do you think I’m not a tourist? I explained that yes, of course I was a tourist, in town for the Victoria Dragon Boat Races and Festival.
“Do you want to make out?”
What? Did he just say, do you want to make out? Holy Mother of God…
“Make out, like kissing?” I say, surely there is a catch or this will cost money or I will be on some inane Canadian Reality Show…Local hotties hit on fat American tourists, film at 11:00 or local serial killer strikes again, stupid American woman found dead in men's room…
“Yeah, that’s what we do here in Canada, we make out.”
“Make out, like no hanky panky, just making out, kissing, that’s it?”
”Yeah, it will be fun, let’s go!” He asks my name and tells me his – it’s Paul.
Paul has a hybrid Canadian-Irish accent and there is not a damn thing unattractive or even creepy about him that I can detect. He is not overtly intoxicated nor am I at this point and I am pondering what in the hell could be appealing about me in an oversized red sweatshirt. I’ve been racing on Inner Harbour all day, no make up, hair blown in three different directions, and Oh God, the huge white maple leaf festooned across my rack! It causes me to blurt out, “But you’re so attractive...” as if to say, why the hell would you want to kiss me?
Paul says, ”Yes – you are.” Okay, game on, that puts me over the edge of restraint and I agree to “make out” with Paul. He ushers me by the hand into the men’s room of this swank restaurant, locks us into a stall and we proceed to make out.
He is a great kisser, there is groping to be sure, and I shoo his hands away from the danger zones. I am not about to go “all the way” with a stranger, albeit young, foreign and handsome, in a men’s restroom in Victoria, British Columbia. I am reminded of my handsome and young first husband, also Canadian and am pronged with a spur of sadness but only for a moment. The “making out” lasts all of five minutes until my logic sensors decide to push him away from me before things get out of hand. He does not persist to my relief.
Back in the hallway, I tell him that he’s made my weekend, hell, my year. He smiles and walks away. He turns back and says, “Hey!”
“yes?”
“What’s my name?”
“Paul…” I say smiling, still not sure that any of it just happened. He says, “Will you remember me?”
Yes, for the rest of my life.
And that is the story of how I know I’m attractive, $55 bra or not.
