God Is the Tree, I Am the Bra

That was what I wrote on my 2nd grade art project. No, I was not a pervert. The theme was supposed to be "God is the tree, I am the branch." To this day, I'm not sure why I couldn't scribble down the "nch" before hustling away from St. Dominic's with my poster tucked under my arm. Anyway, when my oldest sister's best friend saw the poster, she collapsed into a pile of giggles, making me feel AWESOME.

Thus began my storied history with supportive undergarments.

You may want to skip the rest of this post unless you want to get to know me infinitely more intimately than you did before. You've been warned. I apologize, but I'm still a little stunned by how I spent my lunch hour.

Today, I spent a small fortune on bras. Not those frilly, decorative things that tweeners wear once adolescence strikes. Oh no, I had to buy feats of engineering. I've been meaning to do this forever, but pregnancy, nursing, and weight loss have made my size fluctuate a bunch. And these bras? They are expensive, yo. Like, $80 a pop. They aren't La Perla, not by a longshot, but I'm chalking up the more-than-I'd-spend-at-Target price to the cost of the space age material they must contain.

Anyway, this was just one of those things that I've been meaning to deal with forever. And, it has to be said, I can be a bit shy. A paradigm shift occurred in my thinking, though, and being semi-nude in a fitting room with a complete stranger named Yolanda seemed better than running around with a profile that reminded me more of Jabba the Hutt than it did slave-girl Leia. Those of you who are partnered up with nerds know that slave-girl Leia is the end-all be-all for your paramour. Well, either Leia or the Baroness. She also has a killer hourglass figure, though I suspect she got more support out of her uniform than Leia did from the metal bikini.

I digress.

I hoofed it to Nordstrom because it's the only brick-and-mortar store nearby that has knowledgable saleswomen AND stocks bras for the bigger girl. I'm not using "bigger" as a euphemism for obese. My ribcage is average. It's the, ahem, cup region that is problematic. How problematic? You won't find my cup size on a report card.

Just so your in the know, when you're being fitted for a bra, there are two measurements: the one around the ribcage for the band size, and the one around the whole enchilada (enchiladas?). Subtract the band from the enchiladas, and you get cup size. My second measurement was NINE INCHES more than the first one. NINE INCHES.

This is why I learned algebra. Solve for X and you get a GIGANTIC RACK.

I knew I was bigger than average. But jeez, not "You can NEVER buy lingerie from Victoria's Secret" bigger. Many props to Yolanda, though -- it took us about 30 bras before we found 3 that worked. She earned that commission.

Glad I got all of that off my chest. HA!