I am sick (with the flu) and have been home almost all week. The problem with being home (besides cabin fever) is that you notice every imperfection in your house, every age spot on your legs and those barely perceptible (to the naked eye) and asymmetrical droops in your breasts.
I was feeling pretty ok this morning. And I needed to get out of the house. And I was despondent over missing a Soeur reunion in Cancun. And my bras didn’t provide the necessary level of support. So, off I schlepped to the local mecca for women’s undergarments. This is the place where, for decades (until her death), the Dowager Countess of Ladies’ Undergarments would cup your breasts in her hands and yell out a size and style and point you to one of the dressing rooms. And if she determined that your current bra was ill-fitting, she would pitch a loud fit. You had to have self-esteem or you needed to be high to deal with her. I never went while the Dowager was alive.
POB and I went to here to get our undergarments of steel for our wedding dresses. Bessie, an older Southern woman, helped us. She noted that day that I was wearing “some kinda ratty bra.” http://40andoverblog.com/?p=4354
Today, I walked in and saw Bessie and strode straight for her and said, “you helped me with my wedding undergarments and I promised I would be back and here I am.”
“I remember you. You was with a friend and you was both gettin’ married.”
“To each other,” I responded, gently.
“You had a ratty bra that day, I’ll tell yoooooo.”
Sidebar: OKOKOKOKOKOKOKOKOK, really? She remembered? And I was here to rectify that. I was thinking that I wasn’t feeling better; I was just delirious. And why do you think I don’t go bra (other than sports bra) shopping often, huh? A little humiliation every other decade or so lasts a looooooong time.
I spent 90 minutes topless in a dressing room that others had no problem entering at will. I must have tried on 30 bras.
Bessie commented on each: “Now that one make you almost look perky!” “You don’t fill that up anymaw. Betcha you did once!” “Now, that is a beautiful cup on you!!”
“But, Bessie, it is electric blue!!!”
“It don’t matter what color it is. A good fittin’ bra is a good fittin’ bra. You don’t turn your nose at a good fittin’ bra. Not when we’s our age!!”
Pause. We are NOT the same age. I may be going on 50 but she is 70. Wow, I really was delirious.
“I’ll jest put this in the buy pile.” She walked away. Ten bras (of varying colors; some electrically so, some not) later, she went to find matching bottoms. I prevailed on nixing the dull blue and brown striped one that was almost like a bikini top.
“You a full-cut or a thong type?” She yelled for everyone to hear. Of course, the entire conversation was for everyone to hear.
“How about we look at the matching bottoms and then I will decide.”
Bessie packed up all the things she decided I needed, less the bra that I would not, could not, buy. “Now, send your friend on in here, hear?”
Wow, I needed a long snooze.
POB and SOS were doing G-d’s work, by having lunch with my Dad, so I could rest. Or be delirious, whatever.
We arrived home at the same time and had a little rest hour. And then POB and SOS set about making a cheesecake for SOS’s friend who is recovering from serious back surgery. Our hearts were on standby to be broken if anything went wrong. An 11 year-old’s undergoing serious back surgery is a parent’s every nightmare. He came through like the champion he is. And he wanted cheesecake. “Then, give the boy a cheesecake,” said (and did) POB and SOS.
So we all hovered in the kitchen while POB did most of the heavy-lifting, SOS helped a little and I helped not at all.
SIDERBAR: Hey, there needs to be a slacker in every family. I proudly claim that mantel. In fact, I “gold-medal” in it, without the need for performance enhancement drugs. (It is a non-performing sport.)
Then SOS remembered that Cousin Gentle and he are going to visit a Sikh enclave in Queens tomorrow and he needed to learn, “hello”, “good bye” and “thank you” in Punjabi by tomorrow. Cousin Gentle sent a link to a primer on Punjabi.
So, now, I sit in a warm kitchen with wonderful smells wafting through the air, blogging about my day and over-hearing my son practice words in Punjabi.
Yes, yes, I must be delirious.
