Bosoms, Buddies: Part Deux

When I was about twenty one I decide to bite the bullet and take the matters in hand, as it were, and see if there was anything I could do to assist Mother Nature.  A very sincere friend told me if I could get fitted in a bra that wasn’t padded the girls might have room to grow.

So with high hopes and a good amount of gullibility I set off on the mission to become more,  ummm, boobalicious.

Back in the day, 40+ years ago, the upscale department store in Oklahoma City was John A. Brown’s.  It is now known as Dillard’s, but back then it was still John A. Brown’s.  Please excuse the wandering back in time. It seems to happen a lot these days… Now, where was I?

Oh, yes.  Taking affirmative steps to prove or disprove the validity of the claim of non-padded bras.  I am, if nothing else, enthusiastic in the pursuit.  I don’t know why.  The girls, although miniscule have done fine up to this point, but I digress.

I confidently stride into the lingerie department and head for foundations.  Here is where it starts getting dicey.  The saleslady approaches me and in a kindly, but professional tone said, “May I help you sir?” 

I started to turn on my heel and hot-foot it out the door, but I took a deep breath and said, “I’m a young woman and I need to try to get fitted for a non-padded bra.”

Mind you while I did have on casual clothes and my hair was short, though not as short as now, I did have on a padded bra at the time.  Anyway, the saleslady kind of arched her eyebrow and asked me to follow her to the fitting room.  Well, I disrobed, which was traumatic enough being shy back in the day, and the lady took her measurements that she needed and went on the quest.

When she returned with several possibilities in hand we started trying them on.  I kid you not, every single bra I tried on, and there were a few, you could roll up the cup, the A-cup I might add, you could roll it up and pin it and it wouldn’t have made a difference.  Bless her heart, the lady tried, she did. Made several trips out to try different brand names.  After the last round she very kindly suggested that I might try the juniors department. Perhaps they could help me there.  I thanked her for her patience, dressed and walked straight out of the store and never looked back.

Fast forward now to Christmas when I was sixty years old.  I was in Ft. Worth at Ben and Diane’s (baby brother and s.i.l.) and we were opening gifts. Ben handed me a package and I looked and saw it was from Laura, the niece that is getting married next month.  I proceeded to open it with all eyes upon me and it was two brassieres from Victoria’s Secret.  I know I must have gone red with embarrassment because there are some things that you don’t want to open on Christmas with everyone watching. Laura, in her sweetest voice said, “Aunt Helen, you need to start wearing a bra.”

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get used to wearing a bra after sixty years of not wearing a bra?

With age and menopause combined, the forty pounds I put on had endowed me somewhat, and I guess the tank top tees and the loose t-shirt or tops over them wasn’t enough to not embarrass the kid.

So the two things I’ve been making myself do for this month before the wedding is wearing shoes when I go out to dig in the flower beds and garden because it is dang hard cleaning the dirt out from under toenails and…

Wearing a bra of some sorts, whether it’s a jog bra or a regular one, so I won’t be fidgeting and pulling at it during the wedding and reception.

That’s my bosom tale and it is a true story. 

I hope to post some more corn another corn post this evening.  Enjoy your Sunday.

Since We Are Bosom Buddies…

Let’s talk bosoms.  Are you all ready for a real Helen story?  This is a true story and it happened 40+ years ago.

Let me do a bit of setting up the story.

The first photo on the left I call ‘High Hopes’ and the second one on the right I’m practicing my cheerleader pose.

Left photo is mom at John Brown College.  Right, my mom, her sister Aunt Maxine, and the girls they had. My oldest sis, Lou Ann is standing next to mom, second from the left.

Mom, me and Sue Sue and me

My brother caught me ‘underwears’ on vacation the summer before my junior year in high school.  Said he might need it for blackmail purposes.  This was the same trip that Ben woke me up, Helen, Helen, there’s a place that can help you!!  I sat up and saw a sign, FLATS FIXED- $5.oo.  And  yes, the bra is padded.  And there’s still enough room in each cup for a Chihuahua pup to be able to curl up and go to sleep.

My niece, Sarah and I out at the Lake Hefner spillway.  They were letting some water out onto the spillway and you could catch fish with your bare hands.  My baby brother and I took his kids and several nieces and nephews out and we had a ball.

If you look at the photos, you will notice that me, my sisters and our mom were, to put it nicely, not endowed.  Pretty much flat as a board, one and all.  One of the few jokes my momma ever told was that after I’d gotten my second motorcycle she said she was going to take me to the tattoo parlor and have them tattoo FRONT on my chest so if I was ever in a wreck paramedics would know not to turn my neck around the other way and kill me.

I’m getting tired so I’m going to make you wait for the story.  I’ve got it all set up now and we will be able to get right to it (almost) tomorrow…

To Be Continued…

Mammeries Are Made Of This....

One of the more wonderful things (not) about being a female person of the human race is the mammogram. I'm not as vigilant about getting my mams slammed as I should be because it just flat is painful. I know it had to be a man that had it in for women that designed this machine of pain and wonder. Pain for the obvious reason and wonder because of it's ability to spot possible breast cancer. I know that it has saved many, many women, but it still hurts...

I mean, you're talking about someone who was sooooo flat-chested when I was younger that my Bro gave me, for Christmas, a t-shirt with fried eggs silk-screened on it. And that was only because he couldn't find t-shirt with mosquito bites on it. I was so flat-chested that my little momma, who rarely teased about anything that might hurt someone's feelings, said she was going to take me and get "FRONT" tattooed on my chest so if I was ever in an accident the E.R. folks would know which side was up. Mom loved Andy Griffith and had heard his motorcycle wreck (and at that time I rode one) routine, so I'm sure that's where she got that idea.

As I've gotten older and everything is settling and a few more pounds were put on I can actually buy a bra that mostly fits... in the smaller sizes, but it is dang hard to get used to wearing one after sixty years of tank tops under your t-shirts. Anyway, my doctor insisted, so I went in day before yesterday.

You know the drill. They take you in and tell you to change into this little cape like drape and to join them in their torture chamber. They have you step up against the bottom shelf, then they grab whatever there is to grab and pull (pull in my case 'cause there isn't enough to push around) until they get it like they want it and then they step on that foot feed for the top to come and smash down on my poor little booblet.

About the time, and I never have figured out quite how the tech's senses it, you think you are going to (a). scream; (b). faint; or (c) punch them out, they take their foot off the pedal and it stops. Now you are pinned in by your flattened part and any movement on my part will cause more pain.

. They have stepped out of reach and you can't smack 'em. The tech steps behind their protective barrier and snaps a picture of your poor slammed gland. Then they come out, release you and do it all over again with the other booblet that has, in the meantime, taken a clue from the first one and tried to crawl back into my rib cage and hide, alas, to no avail.

So we get the horizontal shots taken and then we get to the obliques that pretty much feel like they are leaving your little munchkins looking like this: \ \ . The tech got the left one in all cattie-wompus, slams it and takes the photo. Now I'm yakking with her all along and she is staying behind her barrier and looking at her computer with a puzzled look on her face, poking on different keys and says... something is wrong.... with my computer.

Whew, I hate long pauses in a situation like that. She gets on the phone and calls and talks to another tech who comes over and presses computer keys and still can't get the damn thing working. My tech told me she was going to another room and see if she could pull up the horizontal shots on another computer because she didn't want to have to shoot them over again if she didn't have to... thank you very much, I'm thinking.

She was able to get the first two on the other computer and only had to redo the first oblique so that saved a squash or two, and she got the second oblique without another problem. She let me go and I was dressed and outta there as quick as I could go.

They were working on the first machine as I walked by the first room I was in, trying to figure out what had happened to it. I decided against stopping in and telling them that it was probably caused by....
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wait for it....
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my MAGNETIC PERSONALITY !!!

Thank you very much!!!

Oh, yes, I must add that I have been told by women with bodacious ta-tas that I'm lucky. If you have mongo mams they have to squash 'em harder than mine because of the density of their breasts. You have my deepest sympathies.