Yo Sunny D!*

I finally went to have that bra fitting. Logan gave me the gift certificate in September for my birthday. There's a very well spoken of bra shop in downtown Royal Oak and I started to suspect my boobs could maybe not be on my stomach. (My friend Chrissy calls hers 34 longs...but they're not really).

I put it off for two reasons. What if I was actually a smaller cup size than I believed? This would throw my life out of balance completely. I also put it off because I only this past year learned to give hugs I'm not exactly ready to be naked in front of people while they wrap a measuring tape around my bosoms.

(This is the part where Logan says, "Did she wrap it around really tightly? Was she hot? Did she have to get a, you know, feel for your cup size." Maybe he's not gay after all. Maybe he's just a 14 year old boy.)

The thought of it really freaked me out but carrying around a hefty gift certificate in my purse for so long was really ridiculous and also, if you've gained weight it's probably a good idea to have your boobs in the right place at least.

I walked into the store and was immediately attacked by satin and lace and thongs everywhere. And women were all fondling the unmentionables in public and I can't explain why exactly this was so difficult for me but ever since I was a kid and had to get my first bra (I even hate the word bra) I made my mom get it and I made her tell the saleslady that training bra was not for her daughter, it was actually for herself and I stood way over on the other side of the store until she had purchased it.

I didn't exactly know what to do, I didn't want to be too forward. Maybe we'd want to flirt for a little while and go get a drink before she weighed and measured my breasts. So instead of just saying, "I need a bra fitting." God that sounds stupid. "I need to be fitted for a bra." That sounds like I'm a horse needing a harness.

Since I couldn't find the words to ask for someone to measure my breasts I stood at the counter pretending to look at the sachets like a fucking idiot. I was trying to what? Be coy for my bra fitting?

So finally one of the ladies said, "Can I help you?" And I tried to talk but no words came out and so she walked me to a dressing room and told me to take off my shirt and she'd be back.

Do you do this at the gynecologist? When the nurse leaves and tells me to strip and put on the stupid gown, the minute the door closes I race to get done. I live in utter fear that one day I'll be standing there in my black socks and nothing else in that horrible lighting and the doctor will walk in before I can get the gown on.

This felt sort of the same but I just had to take off my sweater so I stood there pretending to very intently read the return policy. Riveting. I could really have read it for hours, standing there in my jeans and old ill-fitting bra. In fact, it felt like I did.

She came back and I left my body and watched everything happening from overhead. If you thought my hugs were awkward you really should try to fit me for a new bra. It's a new level of awkwardness.

"Oh, do you want my arms like this?" "Oh I see uhm holding them up? Right? Like this. Okay...oh jees...you put the measuring tape right there. Ha ha. Oh wow. You know, I don't really even like to hug people generally speaking. Ha."

But wait it gets worse. So she tells me my size and gets three bras for me to try on. She leaves with the instructions to "Try each of them on but let me see them so I know if we've gotten the right fit."

Wha? "Okay," I said.

So I tried on the first one and she came back and eyed it and I dissolved into a pool of incredible awkwardness and this was just the first bra. She was eyeing it, I'm sure just looking at the fit but there I am practically nude, and she says, "What do you think?"

"About what? Oh the bra! Right the bra I'm standing in front of you in and you're checking it out. Right. Well besides the horrific awkwardness of this moment, you know it's nice."

Then we did that three more times and she asked if I'd like matching panties. I HATE the word Panties more than any other word in the world. So I said, "As long as I don't need to be measured for them and only if you don't refer to them by anything other than 'you know, those things'."

Once when Logan was on a job interview, he was walking with the hiring person into a building with a revolving door. He was carrying a portfolio with him and for some reason he will lay on his deathbed questioning, he decided to walk in the same cell as the woman he was interviewing with. The portfolio was bashing the woman in the ass and Logan was stepping on her heels and her face was pressed into the glass. That is one of the most awkward interactions I have ever heard of in my entire life.

Imagine if I had been fitted for a bra in a revolving door with Logan, his portfolio and the hiring lady. Awkward.

So finally I am released from the lacy torture chamber of the bra shop and I peek at the bra I got and I revel in the fact that I am NOT a cup size smaller but rather a cup size BIGGER than I thought. This gives me such a boost to my self esteem until my hateful inner voice says, "You have bigger boobs because you're fat you idiot."

Hey! Thanks for ruining my moment.

Fat or not, it is truly amazing what a pair of well placed breasts on your chest will do for you. For your quality of life. For your clothing. They're up high, they're seperated, they create nice long torso. I never knew they could look like this.  My new breasts really brightened my day.

Yes, yes I realize I had to go through hell to get the right bra but I'm telling you Oprah didn't call it a bra revolution for nothing.

I am a lunatic. Normal people do not have such issues with bras (hate that word) and breasts and people looking at their bras. I am not normal and that is okay because I have a bra which fits and I have the power and knowledge that my bust is bigger than I ever thought possible. I highly recommend you get yourself to a fitting. Stat.

Just try to be a tiny bit cooler than me.

*Logan's going to kill me if I don't stop making that little joke about my new cup size only I think is funny.

Comments

[brachick]

I stumbled on this web site when doing research for my job on bra fittings. I am in fact a professional bra fitter for some major bra manufacters (not the expensive ones that they advertised on Oprah). I have been fitting women for bras for 4 1/2 years now and have heard most of the comments made here on this site in the fitting rooms of major departments stores. I hear your pain ladies! I was in fact a women in the wrong size bra for many years, until I started working for the company....thank god for this job! After I have measured a women for a bra and give them some bras to try on, I share my own experience of being a misfit. I was wearing a 34c, but actually a 34dd! Yes, it's true. Nobody ever told me anything different or ever talked about it! There are many of us misfits or as I like to say Queens of De Nile out there, but there is help not far away! Most of your regular department stores, (not just the high priced snooty ones) have someone in the lingerie dept that will fit you for a bra. I myself, travel to a different store each day and fit women for bras. They see the tape measure around my neck and know what I'm there for....they just have to ask. Some women are shy and don't want you in the fitting room and that's fine. I just tell them how the bra is supposed to fit and they can judge it themselves, otherwise I go in and give them advise and help them with their selections of bras (there barely A's to DDD, push up to no wire, half size to halter). Since Oprah's show on bras and as of yesterday, the Today show, women have really come out of their bedrooms and into the fitting rooms to get fitted properly. They complain about the straps falling off, the wires digging, always pulling down the back, not enough support, etc. All of these problems point to unproper fitting bra. I encourage all women to get fit and feel better about wearing a bra...you shouldn't feel like your wearing anything at all! It won't take that long to get fit, in fact yesterday I had a women in the room for 5 min and she couldn't believe she was in and out so quickly! It really isn't like going to the gynecologist or the dentist, but hey, if you want to go out with friends for a drink and then come and get fit!
ps. We call pantyhose, hosiery and yes underwear is panties.....my mistake was in the mens dept and instead of saying briefs, I said panties! I'm a busy women working in many depts sometimes, but I am here to help!

[Kate]

Hysterical....OK, three things to add. One, I actually DID have a woman at Marshall Field's measure me and tell me, in a puzzled voice, that the measurement that's supposed to be the larger of the 2 they take was, in my case, the smaller....while I am quite flat-chested, I am NOT, im fact, concave, so this was even more humiliating than I expected the fitting to be. (I think my true size is like a 37 almost-AA, or something, which does not exist....) I wish I could say the woman was a moron, but the scary part was that she actually did seem to know what she was doing....
Second, I was once fitted for a bridesmaid dress in which this evil saleswoman measured me and announced in the loudest voice possible, "Well, let's see, you're a 6 in the bust, a 10 in the hips and a 12 in the waist," for the entire store to hear. Third, if you must avoid the term panties, PLEASE do not take the route of my (admittedly midwestern) repressed mother, who has always simply called them "pants," which is just damn confusing. Either knickers or undies is probably a safer bet.

[dvsDave]

Does anyone else have the problem that your boobs are two COMPLETELY different sizes? My left one is a B and my right is an A, and I think the right one is somehow smaller since nursing my son. There isnt a bra in the world that fits right. If I could afford it I would probably get the right one enlarged just for the sake of having bras that fit.
Rachel

[CyberBilly]

A few thoughts from a man's perspective...
Perhaps we share more than we think. I can't imagine being "fitted" for something which requires my nudity, with either a male or a female person to assist. But I have had the hernia/ prostate exam. Humiliating and very painful. I know, probably not anywhere near the pelvic exam level, but the closest thing I can imagine. Also, I have a few words I can't stand. Any word that describes the male anatomy. Penis, Dick, whatever. There isn't a polite word fot it, period. At least I can buy "briefs, jockeys, or boxers" instead of panties. I hate that word, too. Love your blog. Thanks... Billy

[Russell]

A friend of mine is so pleased with the look of her "girls" but I find it so hard not to cry. I don't think she has ever been fitted for a bra like most she has gone for a bra way too small she says she is a C but my wife is a DD and she is probably smaller. What should I do? I am at the moment searching the net for bra and lingerie manufacturers that make attractive / seductive bras in anything over a 36C a lot of women in Australia are big breasted but can't get anything that will fit which doesn't cost the earth. The wife ends up crying every time she goes to lingerie stores or clothes stores. Down here we tend to call that "P" word kinckers.