With summer (and swimsuit season) fast approaching... I thought this would be more than appropriate for a good laugh! I did not write this.. but I've definitely "been there"!
Ok,
I wasn't a child in the 1950's but I still like this. :-)
When
I was a child in the 1950s, the bathing suit for the mature figure was-boned,
trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered. They were built to hold
back and uplift, and they did a good job. Today's stretch fabrics are designed
for the prepubescent girl with a figure carved from a potato
chip.
The
mature woman has a choice, she can either go up front to the maternity
department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a
hippopotamus that escaped from Disney's Fantasia, or she can wander around every
run-of-the-mill department store trying to make a sensible choice from what
amounts to a designer range of fluorescent rubber bands.
What choice did
I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice and entered the chamber of
horrors known as the fitting room. The first thing I noticed was the
extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material. The Lycra used in
bathing costumes was developed, I believe, by NASA to launch small rockets
from a slingshot, which gives the added bonus that if you manage to actually
lever yourself into one, you would be protected from shark attacks. Any shark
taking a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer
whiplash.
I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the
shoulder strap in place I gasped in horror, my boobs had
disappeared! Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit.
It took a while to find the other. At last I located it flattened beside my
seventh rib.
The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups.
The mature woman is now meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a
speed bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a
full view assessment.
The bathing suit fit all right, but unfortunately
it only fitted those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed
out rebelliously from top, bottom and sides. I looked like a lump of Playdoh
wearing undersized cling wrap.
As I tried to work out where all those
extra bits had come from, the prepubescent sales girl popped her head through
the curtain, "Oh, there you are," she said, admiring the bathing suit.
I
replied that I wasn't so sure and asked what else she had to show me. I tried on
a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of masking tape, and a floral
two-piece that gave the appearance of an oversized napkin in a serving
ring.
I struggled into a pair of leopard-skin bathers with ragged frills
and came out looking like Tarzan's Jane, pregnant with triplets and having a
rough day.
I tried on a black number with a midriff fringe and looked
like a jellyfish in mourning.
I tried on a bright pink pair with such a
high cut leg I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear
them.
Finally, I found a suit that fit, it was a two-piece affair with a
shorts-style bottom and a loose blouse-type top. It was cheap, comfortable, and
bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My ridiculous search had a successful outcome, I
figured.
When I got it home, I found a label that read, "Material might
become transparent in water."
So, if you happen to be on the beach or
near any other body of water this year and I'm there too, I'll be the one in
cut-off jeans and a T-shirt!
You'd better be laughing or rolling on the
floor by this time. Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance
in the rain, with or without a stylish bathing suit!
Hilarious!
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