It has been a long and challenging summer, characterized by cancelled vacation plans, too much work, a lingering summer cold, and other travails with which I need not bore you. So I decided to cheer myself up by shopping for bras.
Perhaps I would have come up with a better plan under better circumstances. I am in Orlando at the moment (for work), at a hotel adjoining the Orlando Convention Center. It is mid-August and the weather in Central Florida is a few degrees north of delightful. Orlando, I am sure, is replete with charms; but the only thing within easy reach of the hotel is...the Convention Center.
But about a half mile past the Convention Center, assuming you can stand the heat and manage the walk, there is a modest outdoor mall featuring a modest assortment of modest mall stores. And there in the middle of it all was, predictably, a Victoria's Secret. So I decided it was high time my boob-wear got an upgrade.
My saleswoman was a marvelous Latina woman named Migdalia who showered me with attention and brassieres. Every time I tried one on she would clasp her hands to her chest and exclaim, in her gorgeous Cuban accent, "Oh, my GOOOOOOOOOOODDDD!!!" as though she had never previously encountered, nay, even imagined, such magnificent mammaries. Then she would stand back and look at me critically and say, "actually, I don't think that fits you at all."
Mostly I kept Migdalia busy looking for the plain beige bras I tend to favor, and she kept me busy trying things on in shades of bright turquoise and fuschia. In the end we compromised -- a few stripes, a little pink lace:
After all, I'm 49, and it's high time I started to live a little.
It's true that even in Orlando, I probably could have found better and more restorative pastimes than bra shopping at Vicky's. My wonderful friend Jennifer suggested I splurge on a massage at the hotel spa. But I never quite got my act together to schedule a massage; and after a day trapped in a hotel conference room, I was rather desperate to get off the premises. After all, a massage (which costs two bras) may be a deep pleasure, but it is a transitory one, lasting but an hour. While with proper laundering, my new bras will offer me years of looking in the mirror and exclaiming, "oh, my GOOOOOOODDD!!!"
Finally, in honor of my breasts, I would like to re-run my breakout hit, the Singing Mammogram, 13 months after its initial posting on this site. (It was a "breakout hit" in the sense of having been viewed by at least 15 people whom I do not actually know).
If you like it, pass it along! In the competitive category of Songs about Mammograms, I am still lagging far behind the adorable but dubious Giggling Grannies, who have logged over 1,000 hits, while I've been holding steady for some months in the 650 range.(But please, DON'T Google them! You'll only make the disparity worse.)