New clothes

Oh, how I hate clothes shopping. (I know this is unusual, but I really do.)

I go into town with an idea of what I may be after, but never find it. So this made me smile when it arrived in an email today.

This true story was written by a woman in England to her friend after
a swimsuit shopping expedition.

“I have just been through the annual pilgrimage of torture and
humiliation known as buying a bathing suit.
When I was a child in the 1950’s, the bathing suit for a woman with A
mature figure was designed for a woman with a mature figure – boned,
trussed  and reinforced, not so much “sewn” as “engineered”.  They
were built to hold back and uplift, and they did a good job.

Today’s stretch fabrics are designed for the pre-pubescent girl with
a figure carved from a potato chip.
The mature woman has a choice:-  she can either go to the maternity
department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking
like a hippopotamus who escaped from Disney’s Fantasia, or she can
wander around every run-of-the-mill department store trying to make a
sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of fluorescent
rubber bands. What choice did I have?
I wandered around, made my sensible choice and entered the chamber of
horrors known as the fitting room.
The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of
the stretch material.  The Lycra used in bathing costumes was
developed, I believe, by NASA to launch small rockets from a
slingshot, which give the added bonus that if you manage to actually
lever yourself into one, you are protected from shark attacks. The
reason for this is that any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff
would immediately suffer whiplash.

I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder
strap in place, I gasped in horror – my bosom had disappeared!
Eventually, I
found one bosom cowering under my left armpit.   It took a while to find
the other.  At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib.

The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups.  The
mature woman is meant to wear her bosom spread across her chest like
a speed hump.  I realigned my speed hump and lurched toward the
mirror to take a full view assessment.  The bathing suit fitted all
right, but unfortunately, it only fitted those bits of me willing to stay
inside it.
The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom, and sides.  I
looked like a lump of play-dough wearing undersized cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the
pre-pubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtains, “Oh,
there you are!” she said, admiring the bathing suit…I replied that
I wasn’t so sure and asked what else she had to show me.

I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of
masking tape, and a floral two-piece which gave the appearance of an
oversized napkin in a serviette ring.  I struggled into a pair of
leopard skin bathers with a ragged frill, and came out looking like
Tarzan’s Jane pregnant with triplets and having a rough day.

I tried on a black number with a midriff and looked like a jellyfish
in mourning.  I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg
I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.  Finally, I
found a suit that fitted…  a two-piece affair with shorts-style
bottom and a loose blouse-type top.  It was cheap, comfortable, and
bulge-friendly, so I bought it.

My ridiculous search had a successful outcome.

When I got home, I found a label that said, “Material will become
transparent in water.

Author: Sarah

No time to lose. No, time to lose. Make time to stand and stare.... Did you see that? View all posts by Sarah