Volume 1, Issue 3 & 4 - Diverse Voices Quarterly

As if that wasn’t ego bruising enough, the girl asked, “Are you looking for a
wedding set for your daughter? We’ve got some real hot matching bra and thong panty
sets. They’re on that rack by the Angel bras.” She gave me a full smile as she pointed
across the room. The smoke coming out of my ears must have scared her because,
faster than a finger-snap, she returned to her position of defense: behind the counter.
How could this have happened? I was over the hill and couldn’t remember
climbing it! Let me tell you, I marched out of Vicky’s little Angel shop and headed for a
sane and sedate department store.
There I was greeted with elevator music that brought the ’70s to mind;
something akin to the Carpenters. This change emboldened my psyche to believe my
bra was there, waiting for me. Chrome racks covered the floor, more of them than I’d
expected. The walls were filled with slip-on bras that resembled runner’s wear—you
know—stop ’em from floppin’, elasticized to flatten your breasts like those
mammogram machines.
A “may I help you” came from a mature woman wearing a tag that proclaimed
her to be a “professional bra fitter.” Shades of Josephine, I’d been saved. I spent the
next two hours trying on bras made for women just like me, women whose breasts
had succumbed to the sag. After listening to me blabber on about women and their
bra problems, my fitter was eager to inform me, “bras may have fostered improved
female health over the male population.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
With an audible tone of pride in her profession, she answered, “Because a
lifetime of reaching up between your shoulder blades to unhook the thing has given
women significantly better shoulder flexibility.”
Weary of the entire process, I decided underwire was the winner, ignoring my
mother’s warning about a woman who was struck by lightning while wearing a wired
bra. Logic—and close to 30 different style bras—assured me wire or steel was
required: a pure case of fashion overriding comfort. I purchased two and spent the
next 15 years as an Iron Woman, attempting to defy the odds that my bustline
elevator would drop somewhere between the 1st floor and the basement. Fashion
overrides comfort every time!
Fifteen years later, on a cold November day, I found myself blowing out 65
candles on a cake. I remember everyone smiling and being happy about the occasion.
Everyone, that is, except me. It got worse. When the party film was developed, there I
sat, my family gathered around, and my pretending to be glad I was eligible for a
Social Security check. I put on my readers, took a closer look, and almost fainted: my
underwired bosoms appeared to be resting on the belt at my waist. Despite youthseeking
inventions: porcelain veneers, organic-colored hair, tattooed eyebrows, and
botoxed mouth wrinkles; my newest $62 bra, guaranteed to give me a lift, had let me
down.
Diverse Voices Quarterly, Vol. 1, Issue 3 & 4 84