My Savage Breasts
It's official, y'all: my boobs require their own zip code.
In college, I had a boyfriend who was a boob man. Actually, that seems like much too mild a statement, sort of like calling a lifelong three-packs-a-day smoker a dabbler in the nicotine arts. He just...he really loved big boobs. So when I'd buy a new bra, he'd come over and gloat. "Wow, four hooks! You're HUGE!" he'd say enthusiastically, and I'd want to hurt him.
Thank god I didn't marry him. Thank you, thank you, thank you, god. Because if he'd been here today, he'd be writhing on the floor right now, while I stood over him and said, "Wow! How convenient! Your balls just detach!"
See, I'm in one of my annual "OMG why are all the clothes gone?" buying fits - basically, I would never shop for clothes ever under any circumstances if it was not for the fact that the old ones wear themselves out without my permission - and bras are a critical element of this annual festival of pain.
So I was looking at bra fitting advice - because typically my bras don't actually, um, fit all that well - and I saw this piece of information:
"If your cup seam doesn't lie flat against your breastbone, you need to go up in cup size."
And I was like, "Who the FUCK has a cup seam that lies flat against her breastbone?" I very nearly posted here, asking you to go check yourselves out in the mirror wearing your best fitting bras, but fortunately saner heads prevailed. But I did some, uh, not very covert local observation, and I discovered: other women really don't have magically projecting cups. Their cups snug right up to their bodies and nestle down for the winter.
So, with much reluctance, I got a tape measure and actually measured myself.
This is something where - okay. If I could've chosen to pay $150 to have a stranger in another town measure herself, and that would've worked, I would totally have done that. It is worth $150 to me not to have to take a tape measure to my own body. But, tragically, that technology hasn't been perfected yet. I had no choice but to whip out the ol' tape.
And, like, wow. I never have measured myself for a bra before, but I would say the instructions I was given were slightly inaccurate. I would write them thusly:
But I know better than to believe what I read on the internet, so I went down one from the recommended cup size (and that was, yes, still larger than the bras I've been buying) and bought two bras in that, figuring I could publicly mock the sizing chart when they proved to be too big.
They came today. They fit better than any bra I've ever owned. It's pretty clear that if I went up a cup size, they'd fit perfectly.
And that is...that sucks. Because I was already out of the pretty bra range, where you can have things like bows and prints and frolicky cotton. When you switch the little size box to my old size, the color box goes down to just four: white, black, navy, and beige.
But now. But NOW. The size I apparently actually am - when you switch to that, you get just black and white. And the only bras that come in my size at all are what you might call Extreme Ordnance bras - like, these things are not so much sewn as they are constructed. By bridge engineers. Out of high-performance steel. Their general design message is, "Whoa, girl. What have you got in there, watermelons?"
One of the bras I got today has SIX hooks. SIX. And it's a cup size too small! The actual proper size is probably going to have GIRDERS.
I can just picture my college boyfriend's unbridled glee at that piece of news.
I kind of wish he was here, actually. Then at least someone would be delighted at the news. Plus, I would be able to be mad at him, and that would make me feel better.
But he's not. So I'm just posting a little note to say: if you want to send something to me, I'll be at the old address. But if you want to send something to either of my boobs, well, I'm going to have to call the post office. Because there's just not room in this zip code for all three of us.
In college, I had a boyfriend who was a boob man. Actually, that seems like much too mild a statement, sort of like calling a lifelong three-packs-a-day smoker a dabbler in the nicotine arts. He just...he really loved big boobs. So when I'd buy a new bra, he'd come over and gloat. "Wow, four hooks! You're HUGE!" he'd say enthusiastically, and I'd want to hurt him.
Thank god I didn't marry him. Thank you, thank you, thank you, god. Because if he'd been here today, he'd be writhing on the floor right now, while I stood over him and said, "Wow! How convenient! Your balls just detach!"
See, I'm in one of my annual "OMG why are all the clothes gone?" buying fits - basically, I would never shop for clothes ever under any circumstances if it was not for the fact that the old ones wear themselves out without my permission - and bras are a critical element of this annual festival of pain.
So I was looking at bra fitting advice - because typically my bras don't actually, um, fit all that well - and I saw this piece of information:
"If your cup seam doesn't lie flat against your breastbone, you need to go up in cup size."
And I was like, "Who the FUCK has a cup seam that lies flat against her breastbone?" I very nearly posted here, asking you to go check yourselves out in the mirror wearing your best fitting bras, but fortunately saner heads prevailed. But I did some, uh, not very covert local observation, and I discovered: other women really don't have magically projecting cups. Their cups snug right up to their bodies and nestle down for the winter.
So, with much reluctance, I got a tape measure and actually measured myself.
This is something where - okay. If I could've chosen to pay $150 to have a stranger in another town measure herself, and that would've worked, I would totally have done that. It is worth $150 to me not to have to take a tape measure to my own body. But, tragically, that technology hasn't been perfected yet. I had no choice but to whip out the ol' tape.
And, like, wow. I never have measured myself for a bra before, but I would say the instructions I was given were slightly inaccurate. I would write them thusly:
- Measure around your chest just below your breasts.
- Measure around the fullest part of your breasts.
- Subtract the first measurement from the second.
- Memorize or write down the resultant number.
- Bop cheerfully over to the computer and look at the sizing chart.
- Cry.
But I know better than to believe what I read on the internet, so I went down one from the recommended cup size (and that was, yes, still larger than the bras I've been buying) and bought two bras in that, figuring I could publicly mock the sizing chart when they proved to be too big.
They came today. They fit better than any bra I've ever owned. It's pretty clear that if I went up a cup size, they'd fit perfectly.
And that is...that sucks. Because I was already out of the pretty bra range, where you can have things like bows and prints and frolicky cotton. When you switch the little size box to my old size, the color box goes down to just four: white, black, navy, and beige.
But now. But NOW. The size I apparently actually am - when you switch to that, you get just black and white. And the only bras that come in my size at all are what you might call Extreme Ordnance bras - like, these things are not so much sewn as they are constructed. By bridge engineers. Out of high-performance steel. Their general design message is, "Whoa, girl. What have you got in there, watermelons?"
One of the bras I got today has SIX hooks. SIX. And it's a cup size too small! The actual proper size is probably going to have GIRDERS.
I can just picture my college boyfriend's unbridled glee at that piece of news.
I kind of wish he was here, actually. Then at least someone would be delighted at the news. Plus, I would be able to be mad at him, and that would make me feel better.
But he's not. So I'm just posting a little note to say: if you want to send something to me, I'll be at the old address. But if you want to send something to either of my boobs, well, I'm going to have to call the post office. Because there's just not room in this zip code for all three of us.