Last Updated on 3/19/2010

Published on 6/16/2009

Bra fitting just might be a necessary evil

It’s bad enough to hear someone say, “I have no idea what I’m doing,” but when that person happens to be a bra fitter, that’s really bad. It happened to me recently on our long overdue girl’s yearly trip away. Like everyone else on planet earth, we’d been busy with important stuff: work and play, church, home, committee meetings and family events; not to mention shopping for sales at the fantabulous Stein Mart. You can believe I don’t let anything get in the way of those red dot sales (50% off), to which I add a couple more coupons and almost break even. The last time I bought $287 worth of stuff for $43 I nearly cried with joy all the way home, even if hubby Russell did nearly ruin it with, “Did you really NEED all this stuff?” Men!
But back to bras: I had never been fitted for this delicate apparel for a variety of reasons: never stopped to do so, was never in the right place at the right time and truthfully, just never gave it much thought. Like everyone else in junior high, I started with a 32B and tweaked the size over the years. Simple—or so I thought.
We girls were staying at Madelene’s beach house when we ventured out for a day of shopping, dining and walking along the waterfront in Morehead City. We piled into the van, all five of us, and headed out the door early. By the way, early for me is 10 a.m.; but for Madelene, it’s 7 a.m. Judy drove, Pam gave directions, my sister Nancy talked on her cell phone (but not as much as usual), and Madelene and I discussed the word ‘early.’
Inside the department store, everyone headed to a different section. I ended up in lingerie and saw a sign, “bra fitting today.” We gals had discussed earlier an old Oprah Show where it was shown that 8 out of 10 women are wearing the wrong bra sizes. They even had a questionnaire to figure out if your bra size was wrong. I failed that test miserably, but what else is new? I was more concerned with proper fitting shoes (my favorite apparel item) at the time.
The night before our trip each one of us exchanged horror stories about bra blunders such as straps breaking, snaps popping and wire jutting out. I told about my experience wearing a Delta Burke bra—the busty brunette on “Designing Women” with a super Southern drawl, good taste and a pet pig. My selection was a long line bra (to the waist) that sadly, after a few hours could no longer contain my chest/body parts. Eventually I felt like I was choking, as the ‘black Delta,’ which I called it, rode up, up, up towards my chin.
You’d think I would’ve learned my lesson after packing ole Delta away. Au contraire. I’m an impressionable fool and when I saw the Chic Shaper advertised on T.V. promising things like ‘slimming, lift and shaping, perfect posture,’ I thought I’d give it a try. I shopped and thought I’d found the perfect bra, not the Chic Shaper but one very similar. However, it was a repeat of the Delta disaster and the same thing happened: it rode up, I sagged down and once again, I nearly choked. I don’t know if it was from the force of gravity or the sheer weight of muscle and tissue. But there was a definite war between that latex and this lady.
But in the store with my friends that day, I saw a sign that read “bra fitting today” and asked the clerk if she could help me. She seemed so, so sweet—you know the type: someone who would bake pies for the sick, baby sit not only her own grandchildren but her neighbor’s grandchildren, someone who would read her Bible daily. But evidently she did not read the material or attend the seminar the day of bra fitting. She even admitted it with the aforementioned, “I have no idea what I’m doing.” She did ask me if I minded being measured right there in the open next to the cash register to which I replied, “I-I-I guess not,” (hoping she didn’t expect me to strip down). Bless her heart; she measured above my breasts, below my breasts and once in the middle. She scratched her head and then she threw out several possibilities; at least three different numbers and four different letters. Then she said she was pretty sure it was WITHIN THAT RANGE. I am not making this up. She helped me pick out a dozen models (that’s what I’d call them since they have more possibilities and special effects than many automobiles) and I proceeded to the dressing room.
Next thing I knew I heard Judy’s voice. It turned out she too was being fitted. Through a series of starts and stops, guesses and intuitions, modeling and discussion, we both somehow ended up at the cash register hours later with one bra apiece. Mine doesn’t lift and separate, it’s not particularly slimming and it certainly doesn’t help my posture—but it keeps everything nice and tidy and at least I’m no longer fighting with Latex.
Ann Ipock “Life Is Short, So Read This Fast!” www.annipock.com amipock@ec.rr.com