continuing with the boob theme...

So my beloved Trinny and Susannah have been telling me for years that I need a better bra.  And then the Oprah thing on The Right Bra was all over the place.  My bosom has been headed South at a steady pace for a number of years. I suspect that nursing my children into adulthood has something to do with it.  Whatever the cause, I've been feeling dumpy having to haul these things around.  I'd heard that in general women need to go up a cup size and down a band size, so I went in search of 34 DD to fit my 34 extra long boobs (oh yes, I'm totally a Vicky Secret model.  Tyra hates me).

  I really want a fitting at an old fashioned lingerie store staffed by stout immigrant women with mustaches and tape measures, but we don't have one nearby.  I had to settle for a dept. store.  Could bra shopping be any less pleasant?  The racks are overstuffed and crammed close together. They're loosely arranged according to brand, all styles and sizes jumbled up.  Because most people buy their band sizes too large, the bigger numbers are way over-represented.  When I finally tracked down a saleswoman (after trying on and discarding about 8 bras)--who was petite and American, and therefore largely useless--she told me that only two brands made the size I sought.  And she looked at me like I was doing a very dirty thing, by seeking a bra.  And very sexy things they are, too, in that DD cup size.  I know it SOUNDS all hot,but the reality is, the bras look like they were made for prison matrons.  The whole experience raised many annoyed questions.

1--as mentioned above, why the lack of any organization?  Shouldn't the goal be to SELL bras?  Wouldn't, therefore, it make sense to make it easy to FIND the fargin' things?  Just an idea.

2--Why is the sales help always so damned unpleasant in this dept, when they can be found at all?  There should be a cheerful skivvy-savvy woman haunting the fitting room, stopping customers from trying to re-hang the bras and thus destroying the careful organization.  She should be able to look at you and tell you your size.  She should be well paid.

3--Why make bras out of such stiff, nasty fabric?  I'm sure I"m not a princess, but I have delicate boob tissue--and mine have had kids with mouths full of teeth chewing on them.  Let's not cram the things so full of sizing that they stand on their own.  Let's not line the cups with the itchiest seam tape we can find.

4--what the hell is wrong with me?  I found myself pawing through bras, rehearsing a conversation with the sales woman in my head.  If she should appear, I would dazzle her with my knowledge about proper bra fitting and she would know that I was a Good Customer.  A Customer who Researches.  I do this with everything.  I get a hermit crab and I have to be Ariel the Mermaid, meeting his every hermit crab need as closely to his homeland as I can. I'm piping in steel drum music for them, ferchrissakes.  And lest you think this is just what happens when women with advanced degrees and too much book-learnin' stay home, I've ALWAYS been like this.  Total teacher-pleaser.  If I call Lands End to place an order, they have to know that I Know Things About Fleece.  And if I don't have a way to show how very well prepared I am, I go into a panic and try not to complete that task.  Like ordering from a restaurant I don't know.  God I'm a loser.