this was sent to me via email from my good friend judy...talk about a good laugh...not sure where the email originated...but for all of us who have been there...may this put a smile on your face...
When I was a child in the 1970s, 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 Playdough 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!
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