Fifteen years ago I wrote about going bra shopping because I, and every other woman in America, had been sternly advised I was wearing the wrong size bra. Evidently none of us can figure it out on our own. You need a store matron who specializes in such things, and what, exactly, such a person might have put in her curriculum vitae to get the job I do not care to know. There’s going to be a whole section of your department store devoted to Ladies’ Dainties or some such, and it is a bewildering candy shop of colors and sizes. You’re not expected to bushwhack through it by yourself.
So the Dainties Docent takes you on, and first stands back and looks you up and down, mostly up, in a way that used to be more unnerving before we all got used to TSA. She will nod sharply and strut knowledgeably around the racks pulling out this that and the other, and send you to the dressing room. You’ve got two minutes to unstick yourself from your current bra and shovel yourself into a new one, and then she’s right back, rapping on the door. “How are we doing?” she will ask.
We don’t know. It’s not our area of expertise. Everything feels super tight and the chest band mimics a heart attack, but on the other hand the melons are at attention, if not precisely perky. The matron squints at you and assures you that you are finally wearing the correct bra, and she takes a sizable amount of money from you in exchange for a flimsy pink bag of dainties and you’re all set.
You wear your new bras, which are marvels of engineering, for quite a few weeks before reverting to an old sports bra just the once, and that’s that for the Right Size Bra. The new ones go back in the drawer for when you have to actually dress up for something but that hasn’t happened in fifteen years. In the meantime, they started advertising bras online that have no seams, no wires, no hooks or snaps, and you try one out and it feels like you’re being held up by butterfly breath. You get a bunch of those and everything’s great for a few years and then their Spandex gives up the ghost (all of them, all at once).
So I’m trying a new brand out. Nothing about the sizing chart online was helpful and for these minimalist numbers you have no cup size or band width (bandwidth!) and just have to choose S, M, L, XL, XXL, or Wheelbarrow. I’ve lost weight. I chose M.
It’s actually sort of comfortable. But it can’t be the right size. Everything in front is smooshed together. You could suffocate a hamster in there. Also, all the flesh in the armpit region has turned to pudding and it’s blooping out the sides. It looks like the same stuff that waggles off an old cat. I didn’t even bother to check what’s happening in the back.
So I’ll try an L. If that doesn’t work, I’ll just have my armpit pudding tattooed in tortoiseshell.
I am often struck by the question of where you get your photos. Often they’re obviously taken by you or a personal compatriot (beautifully taken I’ll add). But then there are the others, like the sales lady in lingerie. Did you just march into your local purveyor and enlist the aid of said sales lady? If so, I give you snaps, my good author for your dedication to your art and how far you’ll go for an essay.
Armpit pudding. That’s a new word combination for me. I had in mind something far less savory.
Yes. I told her what I wanted and she posed for me.
Oh fudge, when I saw the title of your post in my feed I thought it was going to be about the perils of making armpit fudge, haven’t made that since 1972! Still, the idea of a ‘department store matron’ made me laugh, and I do sympathize for you women who have to strap yourselves into such things. Your matron reminds me when I was a sophomore in high school, going to my first dance and my mom took me to Mickey’s Men Store to get my first tailored suit. The tailor had no problem (when measuring my inseam) asking if I shifted my stuff to the right or the left–while my mom was sitting a few feet away. “Go ahead Doug, tell him.” I was 15-16 and how I survived, I’ll never know.
Hey Doug:
Rumor has it that you can tell if a man is left handed or right handed based on which hand he uses to hold his penis at the urinal. If that’s the case, then it’s yet more proof that my writing hand was switched early on OR that I’m ambidextrous.
Also never had a tailor ask me that question.
Bruce that’s very interesting–well as a matter of fact, I am not ambidextrous (I only write with my right) but I do pitch, bat, bowl, whisk, type, shave, brush my teeth, you name it only with my left.
I thought tailors always asked men “which side they wear it” on. Got to put in a little extra room. A little, mind you.
I sculpt with my left hand, do most mechanical tasks with my left, most any task that requires strength the left is called into action first. The right is for writing, drawing and more refined tasks. I can paint artistically with both hands.
My boss’ dad, the Uber boss at the old machine shop coached me through an electrical repair some years ago. Apparently I kept swapping hands for the task or he’d seen me doing other jobs with the right hand. He asked whether I was right handed or left handed. I told him both and he got pissed off and demanded that I answer the question right or left. So I said ambidextrous and that time it sank in. He said that explained a few things.
A few years ago, actually at least thirty years ago I heard on NPR that you could tell which hand was dominant based on how high or low either ear was. I tried it out and it was very accurate. Of course I’ve now forgotten how to tell. All I can say is that my ears are equally spaced on my head.
I just Googled it and it says there have been studies that attempted to link handedness to ear position and the conclusion was that it wasn’t reliable. Did mention that we have one dominant ear, which makes sense.
I can only write with my right hand. Can only wield a hammer with my left and the nail with the right. Apply makeup with either hand. When blow-drying my hair, the right hand wields the brush, the left the dryer. Don’t know if any of that makes me “ambi” or just compartmentalized.
Makes sense with the ear. I sleep on my stomach, head in one direction or the other. When my head is facing right, I can hear the pond fountain outside my window. With my left, I hear the crickets, but not the fountain. I thought that maybe I was going deaf in one ear, but maybe the crickets and the fountain are at differing decibel levels?
I hear crickets all the time. I think it’s my thought processes.
It’s easy to measure oneself for a bra. You can just Google it, and they tell you exactly what to do. (Put on a bra you already own. Measure around the um… highest point. Measure around the band. Subtract the latter from the former and that gives you the cup size.) It’s not some arcane art. It just involves a bit of math. And Google, of course. And always be sure they have a decent return policy, because just because something is SUPPOSED to fit doesn’t mean it will, or that it’s comfortable or flattering.
What? You subtract a number from a number and it gives you a letter? Awesome.
Alge-bra?
Good one! They give you a chart if you google it. A 1-inch differential is an A-cup. 2 inches, a B-cup, and so on. Seriously, anyone can do this, not just specialized “matrons.”
But what do you do to deal with asymmetry?
You go with the bigger cup and add some padding (called a ” chicken filet”) in the smaller cup.
I figured that was the answer. Thanks for confirming it.
Or, you go in between and have a pudding explosion on one side and a bagginess on the other and in between you have a place where you don’t give a shit.
Didn’t matrons used to be called battle-axes?
What do you mean “used to”?
Oh my Gawd= my laughter explosion is sustained and convulsive……..I have enough candidate underwear to supply Joan ‘d arc’s army . hahahahahahah. Thanks for the sustained laughter!
It did disappear off the subject now and then…… up and down, round and round, but a giggle a line and of course the comments were most thought provoking!
Did this discussion of women’s breasts mutate into a discussion of men’s hands? I approve.
I blame DougM for his scurrilous account of tailoring and which side his junk is on (which he never clarified)… and then me segueing into how you can tell which hand is dominant and then going further off into the weeds.
Oh by the way, the story about telling how big a man’s equipment is based on the size of his hands or his nose, I don’t have enough data to substantiate that. All I know is I have big hands and standard sized equipment.
And now Murr is going to throw me off the bus.
Apologies.
You and Doug are such bad boyz! 😉
You encourage us! That’s like spraying gasoline on a fire!
😈 Yeah…. I never said that I wasn’t a bad, bad girl….
What I want to know is if Bruce writes a blog of his own, or has a podcast, or routinely comments on the blogs of others than Murr’s. If so, please share the information or addresses of said posts, as I enjoy them all tremendously!
Mary Ann in Portland, Oregon
Hi Mary Ann/Sculptor1:That’s very sweet of you to say particularly since I’m very depressed at the moment. A little bright spot on a day when my hopes of finally getting out of financial hell were dashed. Or at least put on hold until I’m 67, by which time I may have progressed to the ninth ring of financial hell.
Anyway to your question. No, I’ve never blogged, done a podcast or anything beyond posting on Facebook, commenting here extensively and a few other blogs more sporadically.
I do send out regular emails to a few friends and try to call two other friends everyday. I used to email, then text, then phoned my dad twice a day, the progression being as his mental condition deteriorated. All that’s left of him is sitting in a box in my living room at the moment. I don’t have much to say to him now and he has nothing to say to me.
Others on Murr’s blog have asked if I’d ever thought about blogging or podcasting. The answer is yes, but like many things I think about, I haven’t acted on them. I go to work, after work I on my art projects when someone is paying (not at the moment) and wish I’d done things differently. Oh yeah, also think regularly about the fantasy novel I started in 1983, almost completed in the Oughts and then mostly shelved when my reader got more interested in being a grandma.
I’m looking at a bra website, and it explains, that after measuring your torso under your boobs, if it’s between 26-32 and an odd number, add 5 (add 4 if even); if it’s between 33-38 and even, add 2 (if odd, add 3); if it’s over 39 and an odd number, add 1 (otherwise add 0). If you do it several times and always get a fraction, stick your elbows out and flap like a chicken.
The reason for adding odd or even numbers is that bras only are made in even band sizes (34, 36, 38, etc.) And the reason for adding inches to the number you measure is that a bra is supposed to fit using the loosest hook. If/when it stretches out in time (as elastic tends to do), then you use the tighter hooks.
Mimi, why do you know all this about bras? Because I always buy them online anymore. Go to a store, and they usually don’t have your size/color/style in stock. And this way, I can try them on under a variety of clothes. Sending things back via the UPS store is so much easier than driving out to the mall to return stuff.
I understand, but still think it’s silly that if your torso measures 36, your bra needs to be (gets out calculator) 38.
Been there, done that. Pretty much exact same experience save once trying on a sports bra that had no closure…..just one circular extra tight spandexy/lycra thingy. I got it on myself (God knows how), but had to call for help to get out of it. Unsure if I’ve ever been back to that store.