I Don’t Like Shopping (Part Two: The Bra)

If you follow my blog with any regularity, you have probably discovered that I am not a shopper. In our household, I don’t even do the grocery shopping.At any given time, I keep a little notepad in my purse in which I list the items I need: practical things like shampoo, toilet paper, hair colour and pain reliever. When the list gets long enough – or the need for any of the above-mentioned items becomes truly dire, only then do I head for the store, list in hand.

Of all the things I hate shopping for, nothing tops the list quite as completely as the dreaded Mission to Find A Bra. Now before any of you go and get any ideas, let me hasten to add: my bras are generally as practical as my shopping list. You know; Mom bras: no fuss, no frills, no exorbitant bill. Nothing to write home about, I can assure you.

And as much as I know that as a woman, I am an oddity for not enjoying shopping for anything but books, I have yet to meet a woman who enjoys shopping for bras. Not one, unless you fall within the income bracket of women who can walk into a specialty shop, wave a wad of bills around, point at their chest and imperiously tell the saleslady, “Look at these, please, and find me something ridiculously pretty that fits them”. Bra shopping, much like having your legs waxed, is simply NO FUN.

My income bracket falls into the department-store category of undergarments. The ones on sale. Oh, don’t get me wrong; they make them sound great. They give them exciting names that include words like ‘wonder’, ‘play’, ‘maiden’, ‘vanity’, ‘exquisite’ and ‘glamour’. Advertisers – even the department-store advertisers – really make these things sound exotic and fun.

I am here to tell you, there is nothing wonderful about a department store bra. Once you get past the brand name, they give each item in their line creative names like ‘2278’, ‘9901’ or ‘447’. There are approximately a million sizes of each and you have to be able to decipher between cup sizes (A, AA, B, BB and so on, until you reach the end of the alphabet) AND the dimensions of your body under the appendages you are there to cover up (from the dainty and oft-sung about ‘34’ right on up to infinity). Then you must decide between no support, medium support, full support or this-could-withstand-a-hurricane support. Some have dainty little straps. Some have no straps. Some have straps as thick as tree trunks. And do not get me started about features such as push-up bras, minimising bras, full-coverage bras, seamless bras, back-smoothing bras, underwire bras, front closure or back-closure bras, sports bras (which require their own guide book to get into) and maternity bras.

Because I’m pretty smart about shopping, each time that I have had to spent several days in a department store changing room trying on one bra after another (keeping in mind, of course, that you can only take in six at a time), I keep the box. And when my current bra wears out, I take that box to the department store so that I can quickly find the same thing the next time I need one. Once I know which style works, I can go for years without having to enter the dreaded department-store changing room.

Done. Boom.

But then, the bra manufacturer discontinues that make. Or I gain weight. Or I lose weight. Or the store doesn’t have the particular, complex algorithm of bra that happens to fit me and absolutely no one else.

All that to say, I had to go through just such an ordeal recently. With my husband in tow. The lone bra I had left was falling apart. Whether I liked it or not, the time had come. Nonetheless, I came confidently to the proper section of the store, a cut-out from my last bra package in hand. And I stood there, stricken, as it slowly dawned on me that they did not have my size. Annoyed, I made my husband go off to find ‘something’, and then, when he came back not even two full minutes later, another ‘something’. But he just kept coming back, half fascinated, half exasperated, to still find me in that hated section. The last time he came back, he watched me, standing as still as a statue, in front of the same display I had been standing at for what seemed years. Seeing that I clearly didn’t know what I was doing, he decided to be supportive (pardon the pun).

“Here it is,” he said helpfully, as he grabbed a box and handed it to me. I rolled my eyes. “That’s a 22379, NOT a 22378.” I told him curtly “And it’s beige; not white. And it doesn’t even have an underwire. And there’s no support. None! Can’t you see the frigging difference?”

He wisely decided to leave and find ‘something else’. For the car. And this time, he did not come back.

He had only been gone a minute when I spotted a boy aged perhaps 9 or 10 at the end of the bra aisle, watching me with fascination. I suppressed the urge to hiss at him like a cat, and his mother – not unaware of my plight – hurried him away with a quick, sympathetic glance in my direction.

I eventually found the bra. I bought two of them. And I kept the box.

For all the good it’ll do me…

Source of photo

Patti Moore Wilson/ © wednesdayschildca.wordpress.com

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If you liked this post, try https://wednesdayschildca.wordpress.com/2018/04/25/reflections-on-footwear-fashion-and-common-sense/#more-204

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