August 1, 2006
Shopping
Originally posted on the Breast Health Online forum





I went bra-shopping at Mervyn's on Saturday.  

I've already ordered some size-nonspecific "leisure" bras online (front-close/no underwires/stretchy/comfy/virulently-unsexy/strictly-business), to wear in the days and weeks following the surgery, but I was worried that they might not arrive in time.  So I figured I should buy at least one "offline bra" to have on hand  ...  just in case.  And of course Mervyn's had absolutely nothing even CLOSE to what I needed.  They never do, but when you've only got one department store in town (and you're feeling too lazy to leave the island), it's Mervyn's or nothing.  I circled the bra department a dozen times, but the "full figure" bras all closed in the back  --  that's a violation of doctor's orders  --   and the "sports bras" were tiny little one-piece affairs, barely more than a rubber band around the chest.

Worse still: no sales clerks upon whom I could throw myself (and my credit card).  Ordinarily they're more prolific (and only slightly less welcome) than a swarm of rabid mosquitos, but on Saturday they were nowhere in evidence.

Worse STILL: the usual gaggle of snarky twentysomethings and toney island matrons, looking down their noses at me, in my bulging T-shirt, like I was some sort of freak.  

Ordinarily all of this would have been enough to send me out of the store in tears.  (And it HAS sent me out of the store in tears, more than once.  Bra shopping has ALWAYS been a major source of trauma.)  But this time I just found the whole thing amusing, in a happy/sad/bittersweet/fudk-you! sort of way.   I realized that  Mervyn's bra department is probably never again going to reduce me to an embarrassing public *BooHoo Moment.*  So I just turned around and walked out of the store without buying anything at all.  (Ironically, just as I was walking out the door, some fortysomething dude in a cowboy hat looked at my chest and said "SWEEEET."  Hee.)

AND when I got home, one of my online bras was waiting for me in the mailbox.  So there you go.

next        previous        home        archives        want to throw a rock?