How Much Can You Get In YOUR Bra?

Oh, where to start, where to start. I haven't written in a while because I was waiting for a good subject to sink my teeth into. Yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. I pay taxes, I'll end any sentence I want with a preposition. Deal with it. So anyway, I had a couple of potential candidates. First, I was reading the Sunday paper recently and had a howling good time over the "Weddings and Engagements" section. SM watched in fascination as I counted bridesmaids and compared honeymoon destinations to home locations. "Fourteen!" I crowed, after reviewing all the bridal entries. "This chick had fourteen female attendants!! Who does that??? How did they all fit on the stage?" Because of course for nearly every female attendant, there is a male attendant. Throw in the officiant and the bridal couple, and the stage qualifies for its own zip code. My other favorite is checking out the honeymoon destination. Mr. and Mrs. Buck Backwoods go to Myrtle Beach or Gatlinburg. Dr. and Mrs. Arthur "Pinky" Wilberforce-Middleton IV go to South Africa and swing by Mozambique on the way home. And yes, they are usually the ones who have so many attendants. And yes, most of the attendants have double-barrelled names like Carnegie-DeBeers, Beamer-Waterford, Muffington-Uppington, and so forth. It's really very entertaining to read. Then there is occasionally the couple who SHOULD have gone to Myrtle Beach or Gatlinburg but blew most of their budget on a really big trip. "The couple will go to Buckingham Palace for their honeymoon and will reside in Podunkville, USA." What a come-down. OK, so all of this is good fun, but really, is there anything more to say about it? So I didn't write the blog about it.

Then there was T-ball practice the other night. We signed Sam up for his first ever T-ball league, which started this past Tuesday night. I wanted to be sure that Sam's team was the one for ankle-biters who'd never held a baseball in their lives, so I was relieved so see the average height of his teammates was about halfway up to my hips. These were little kids. Good. This would be a great experience for him. Since it was raining, we held an informational meeting under the picnic shelter and got to review the lineup before leaving for the night. First question from the coach was whether we wanted the kids to play in shorts or baseball pants. Well, it was morbidly hot and humid, what with the rain, and summer was only going to get hotter, so SM and I piped up, "SHORTS!" All the other parents turned and looked at us, and in the nicest way possible, overrode us with 1001 reasons why the boys should wear baseball pants. One couple even held up their little boy like a pageant queen for all of us newbies to observe the correct T-ball attire. Oops. Didn't think about that whole "sliding" thing. Then there was the glove. We'd been told that each boy needed to bring his own glove. I thought it was called a mitt. I'd always heard about "baseball mitts", so SM and I both went around calling it a mitt. We were stiffly informed that "it's a glove, not a mitt." Well. We're not doing very well, are we? The final straw came when we perused the lineup. Most of the kids looked like Sam: little boys in T-shirts, shorts, cute tennis shoes, wearing slightly confused expression as they milled around, holding their gloves up in the air because they didn't know what else to do with them. Then there were the ringers. They came with their own bat bags. They looked serious. I felt certain they were really short 15-year olds and they would cream all the kindergarteners. So basically we failed the first night and in a few weeks Sam will walk 12 feet in front of us and refuse to acknowlege us until we all get in the car for the ride home. Again, not much to write about, right? Right.

So now we come to today.

God spoke to me today. And I covered my ears and said, "LALALALALALA" trying to tune Him out, because I didn't like what he was saying.

We're going to the beach next week. I haven't bought a new bathing suit since my honeymoon (Cocoa Beach, 7 attendants including flower girl, thank you very much) so I went online and ordered one from Lands' End. It arrived and I tried it on this morning. Bottom fit. Stomach fit. Straps fit. Bust...oh, my.

If you don't want TMI, turn your computer off right now. Otherwise, keep reading.

The bottom of the bust line came halfway down my stomach. The bust itself billowed 'round the girls. I stared in the mirror. It was like a car wreck - I was horrified but I couldn't take my eyes off it. Sophie wandered in and stopped, mesmerized. I turned to her and we just looked at each other. I don't know why, but most designers assume that if you're a big woman, you also have a big bust. NOT TRUE. My girls are little. They are completely disproportionate to the rest of me. Well, OK, they fit my ears - I have little ears -, but they're way out of proportion to everything else on me. They could have wandered around in this bathing suit like camels in the desert. This bathing suit was meant to fit a triple D, easily. I looked down in the bust, which was kind of folding in pessimistically, and was seized by a wild desire to figure out just how much could get in there, what it would take to fill this puppy up. Sophie helped me, grabbing items off my vanity and helping me stuff them in there. I got in two big prescription bottles, my cosmetic bag, and a book before I stopped. If I'd rearranged things I could have also gotten in a small silver picture frame, but I didn't want to get poked. Plus I had to stop so that I could slap Sophie on the back and get her breathing again. She was laughing that hard. She hadn't had that much fun in ages. Needless to say, I will be returning the suit. This is when God spoke to me: "My child, if thou would loseth a hundred pounds, thy boobs would fit thy body."

So now, on the first day of school's summer vacation, when everybody will be out getting vacation stuff, I will take two children and go shopping for a new bathing suit. Oh. Joy.

Now THAT'S worth writing about.