a quick memory: of brassieres and being a stupid teen
Dressing up before I go to work, a scene comes to mind.
I’m about 13 or 14 and with me is a cousin, who’s a year younger. She’s worrying about how she’d wear a tube top for a party or something. We are seated on my parent’s bed, debating what to do. Spread out in front of us is a stalwart collection of her (mine, my sisters’, and her sister’s) under things. Which one to wear?
Both having the bodies of the young, early teens that we were, nothing fits. Not my sister’s “special occasion” multi-strapped brassiere, nor her own sister’s more ordinary-but-would’ve-been perfect strapless one. The said boobs are far too small to actually fit in our older siblings’ more developed bodies.
I raise a suggestion. Fingering one of her school, nude-colored brassieres, I quickly go outside the room and filch my granny’s shears.
“Let’s cut the straps.”
Snip. Off the left strap. Another snip. Down goes the other.
Happily, my cousin tries it on. And voila! What do you know. An instant strapless brassiere. We talk excitedly for hours before she actually dresses up and finally leaves for her party.
Later that night, she returns. I’m already asleep but she wakes me up.
“That was embarrassing.”
Those were the words that she woke me up with. What? Why? I was fully awake, seated on my bed.
Turns out that our instant strapless brassiere couldn’t keep up with her all night. Halfway through her party, the brassiere started slipping off and ending up somewhere in the middle of her tummy. I wanted to laugh out loud, but since it was my “brilliant” idea to do so, I really couldn’t. So I let her take it out on me and later, alone in my bed, I ended up laughing myself to sleep at the mental image of my cousin dancing, her brassiere all bunched up in her tummy.