BOOBY TRAP!

This is the sms that I got last night from a like-bosomed friend: "Do you want to come bra shopping tomorrow afternoon? My bra situation is so dire that my babylons need a proper harness or they'll walk away all by themselves!"

Backwards and forwards went the sms's, plans to FINALLY visit Bravissimo in Milton Keynes made in an ecstasy of hope - that at long last my boobs would no longer be the victims of senseless gravitational tragedy! The Plan: meet at Anne's house around 12pm. Drive to Northampton Station. Park. Catch the train to Milton Keynes. Shop for the ultimate in breast elevation and perkification.

However... Another couple of icy inches of snow fell in the wee hours of the morning, making any sort of travel, other than by slow, careful walking in thick woolly socks and gumboots, dangerous. Damnit!! My euphoria was replaced by terrifying visions of my exponentially slumping mammaries dangling about my knees because they'd have to endure another agonising week minus appropriate buttressing! The irony of it all is that I have the boobs my 13 year old self wished for. (NEVER wish upon a star, ladies!!) I used to look down at my small little chest mounds, for they could never have been called 'breasts' - and compare them to my mom's boobs. Hers looked like real boobs. I wanted mine to have that fold underneath. That fold that we all now know means our boobs have lost their pert youth and are now officially 'saggy'. Anyway, my chest continued to blossom, thanks to my rollercoastering hormones (and moods!) and by the time I was 18, I happily ran around campus in bra-less 34B perfection, with not a worry in the world about that thing called Gravity. By my fourth year at uni, my maternal grandmother's genes began to make themselves known in a sudden boob-boom: and a bra-fitting at La Senza confirmed a size increase to a D-cup. All men and smaller-chested women think that the 'D' stands for delicious, divine, decadent and desirous. But the dire truth is that it denotes drooping, discomfort, distress and doom. And I think of these bizarre documentaries following the cosmetic journey of women who have bigger and bouncier balloons of silicone sutured into their chests in a quest for, let's be honest: love. 'Love' for which they pay the coin of sex for. When I think of the issues my large-ish bosoms have irritated me with, I wonder at the ugly desperation behind these Frankensteinian boob-jobbed ladies... at what has driven them to covet male sexual attention so obsessively.

Before my soapbox collapses, let me define why I said the 'D' in 34D was so disastrous.
1. "drooping": Real D-cup breasts are heavy. Like two lumps of rump-steak 'heavy'. And this means gravity loves them more than you do! Admittedly, the droop was never quite as disastrous as the excessive dangling of the post-pregnancy F-cups I now drag around with me... I am looking for a bra that will give my bazoombies such a fabulous boost that my waist will once again be visible! (Yip, so when I said they drooped, I wasn't exaggerating.)
2. "discomfort": Big boobs in summer are hell on earth. Hot, sweaty and not at all sexy. Also, think about the muscles in your constantly aching back that must compensate for carrying what can be likened to lugging a large, rock-filled Gucci tote on your chest!
3. "distress": Many eyes become glued to your mamilla in public - whether you like it or not. (I don't.) Lewd, watering old men's eyes. Furtive, horny other-women's husbands' eyes. Angry, jealous women's eyes. (With reference again to our surgically busty bimbos, they remind me of naughty toddlers: any attention is good attention.)
4. "doom": Lastly, massive mammary glands = lingerie that is more armour-plate, octogenarian, elasticized contraption than lacy sweet-nothings that'll melt your man straight into a swoon. Quite frankly, I feel doomed to forever be confined in mammoth-cupped unsexiness. My last three bra purchases testify to this apocalyptic sense of catastrophe: none of them, though the correct size of 38F, gave my boobs a shape that looked or felt good. Each set of bras were returned by gloomy ol' me. But...

There IS hope! Bravissimo! Every woman in my boat who carries extra buoyancy (wink, wink) and shops at Bravissimo testify they will not shop ANYWHERE else for their brassieres! Besides the fact that you will be professionally fitted, the actual product is apparently outrageously gorgeous and of impeccable quality. And so, with a date set for Sunday to go bra-shopping at Bravissimo, I look forward to telling you all the juicy details and sharing with you my renewed sense of Lisa!

As a kind of (very important) PS, I must mention that although I have bitched and moaned about my breasts, I am deeply thankful for the fact that I even have breasts. Watching a program on TV the other night about a woman who had her breasts reconstructed after a brutal mastectomy and the emotional agony she suffered between the two operations, reminded me of how gloriously beautiful our breasts are in any shape or size -- and how miraculous in their function of so perfectly nourishing, hydrating and soothing our babies. Viva Les Boobies!