Mammaries, Like the Corners of My Mind

Which is worse, bathing suit shopping or shopping for new jeans? Oh wait, what about shopping for a nice dress, that’s pretty rough too. Men can’t relate. Buying jeans and dress shirts is like buying lumber at Home Depot; it’s all about the measurements.

The only thing women buy that is based on an actual measurement is a bra, but even those aren’t exactly standard because boobs aren’t standard. One is always larger than the other, and where they sit on the chest is different for every woman. Some are close together and create a nice cleavage and a good line in sweaters. Some are far apart like magnets repelling each other. Some are nice round mounds. Some are long tubular flappy appendages. Some sit high and salute the sun. Some are sad and hang their heads low  in shame. Some are pert and sassy. Some are tired and worn out.

And bras aren’t what they used to be. When my nana unhooked her bra and released her ginormous ta-tas, she practically needed an engineering degree. Each contraption was made of reinforced material with support beams and a series of hooks that looked like an apartment door on “Good Times.” There was no breaking into that thing.

Now, bras are supposed to, well, titillate. They push up what you have. They accentuate your nipples if that’s what you want, or hide them coyly behind concealing petals. They have full cups and demi cups, not unlike Starbucks. They have convertible straps or clear straps or no straps, and they come in more colors than a box of Crayolas. They are made of bamboo or spandex or Egyptian cotton and are designed for under t-shirts or to be worn on stage. They have no padding or so much padding that your blind date is going to want his dinner money back if he gets to second base.

So back to the original question of which is worst: bathing suit shopping, jeans shopping, dress shopping, or bra shopping. Wrong, it’s none of them. The answer is bra shopping with a twelve year old girl.

When you go bra shopping for yourself, you pick out a bunch of different styles to try, take them in the dressing room, fondle yourself and judge your half dressed body, and then decide which ones don’t make your boobs look like pancakes or rocket nose cones and buy those. When you go shopping with a twelve year old girl, it is a highly covert operation, and you didn't get the proper security clearance. It’s even more like a government agency than you think because you don’t actually get to see what you have spent your money on, you just have to trust it’s going for a good cause and will be used appropriately.

When my tween child first needed lingerie, shopping was not a traumatic experience. I ran to Target, picked out some cute little starter bras in a variety of colors with shit on them like butterflies and frogs, and brought them home for her to try on in the comfort of her bathroom. They worked and that was that.

But over the past few months, it occurred to me that she had not asked for new ones. Every time I looked at her, my eyes were drawn to her chest and the fact that she had one. There was no way those tiny little starter bras were holding the small handfuls I couldn’t stop gawking at. I had to take action. I confronted her with the need for bra shopping. She loves going to the mall, so I figured she’d be thrilled. You would have thought I was sending her to military school.

It boiled down to this: she didn’t want new bras because she didn’t want boobs at twelve. She was upset about developing. I pointed out that boobs were nice, that in moderation they made your clothes fit better, and at some point in the not too distant future she would be pretty damn happy to have a nice set. She wasn’t buying it.

We bypassed Victoria’s Secret and headed for a store called Aerie, which is like a tamer, more teen friendly version of Victoria’s Secret. My tween has been frightened of VS ever since she saw displays of thongs in their store windows and understood what they were. We peeked inside while walking by, and the bright colors, slutty ho-ware, and hordes of lurking men brought on a whole new level of terror. We continued until we got to Aerie, and I told her to go to the back of the store where the sale racks were.

Then I walked up to a sales clerk and said, “Don’t make eye contact with me. There is a tween in the back of the store, and she needs to be fitted for a larger bra. Please help her in the dressing room area, but don’t let her know you are fitting her. You have to make it look like nothing is going on.” She turned to face me but I stopped her with “Eh, eh, eh. We didn’t have this conversation. You never spoke to me.”

She nodded at her shoes and walked back to the store, found my kid, and corralled her into the dressing room area. I browsed around for ten minutes before heading towards the back of the store. I stepped in the dressing room area and called my daughter’s name. She grunted at me from behind a door.

“Open up,” I said. “I need to know what kind you like.”
She unlocked the dressing room door with tears in her eyes. 
“I’m a B,” she wailed. “I knew it!” I shrieked. “How can you try squeezing into those old bras?”
“Stop it, you’re embarrassing me,” she yelled.

She handed me one style, shoved me out of stall, and slammed the door. I went back to the same sales clerk. “We need two of these,” I told her. I paid for them and waited outside the store for my tween to slink out.

She did not wear one out of the store. Instead, she gave me the stink eye from there to the car, where I informed her that we would now be heading to another store like Target or Kohl’s to buy some more, since we knew her real bra size. 32 B. Oh my Jesus.

She stopped glaring at me long enough to roll her eyes, then muttered,”Target.”
“Perfect!” I exclaimed.

We found two more bras in her new size there, and I was satisfied for the moment. I knew her size and her preferred style, so next time, I can just pick up a few by myself and she can either approve or veto them from the privacy of her own room. When we got home, I told my husband how it went, and showed him our purchases, because what if something happened to me tomorrow and he would have to take over maneuvering the tween years solo?

“Good lord,” he said. “You got her red? What is she, a whore?”
“After the mortification she experienced today, I can safely say no one will ever see that red bra again" I said. "I call that a job well done. Now fix me a drink with an Advil chaser.”

She is twelve. She wears a seven and a half shoe, except when she wears an eight. She has a B cup and knows what the F word means. If you say the word balls in front of her, she laughs. She is not a baby anymore. Given the choice of shopping for new jeans or a bra for someone I used to hold in my arms and sing to sleep, I’ll take the personal humiliation of trying to disguise my fat ass and muffin top in some industrial strength blue denim. That only makes me feel fat.