@JENGOSMonkey I WAS THERE FOR '89! I was a kid, but I remember the water coming out of the swimming pool in huge waves and everything falling from the shelves! I was actually born in San Jose, but moved around a lot later LOL I hear the wildfires are more of a concern for you guys now? That's scarier than quakes for me...
Buying a bathing suit
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It's tough being a 'real' woman who needs to buy a bathing suit for a sunny beach holiday.
Real women have a choice, they 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 they 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. Women are now meant to wear their boobs spread across their 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 suit 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!
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Thank you for a terrific afternoon smile. I am still laughing. You have a future in stand up comedy if you want one, I am sure!
BTW, I wear board shorts and a sports bra to swim. Tired of bathing suits that look O.K. on the beach but leave you tugging them back on if you are foolish enough to attempt to swim in them!
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LMAO! Too funny, been there, done that, and reverted back to shorts and oversized t-shirt that dried in 10 seconds flat!
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I cannot take credit for the writing, though it is totally my style of thought.
It was passed to me by a girlfriend who just bought a bathing suit for a trip to Hawaii. But the words are my sentiments exactly! -
I am making my way through the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency books. It takes place in Botswana and is a delightful, light read. The main character in the books describes herself as a "traditionally built" woman.
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Love the bathing suit story! (And also love the Ladies Detective books, I too am 'traditionally built' and run in horror from the bathing suit section of the store! )
Thanks for the laugh today, Fran. -
Love the bathing suit story! (And also love the Ladies Detective books, I too am 'traditionally built' and run in horror from the bathing suit section of the store! )
Thanks for the laugh today, Fran.I don't think i'm traditionally built, but if these Cadbury eggs keep following me home . . .
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Oh, that made me laugh so hard I had tears in my eyes
Thank you for sharing…
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That is SO funny - and so familiar! I have been wearing the same bathing suit for about 7 years because the horrors of trying on another one in front of those dreadful changing room mirrors is just too much to face! I live in a community full of older ladies like myself who all are well aware of the bathing suit saga! The fact is that most of us cannot understand whatever happened to that 20 to 30 year old body that loved bathing suits and how did it become the "around 70" body that pours like a mixture of pudding and jello into whatever shape it seems to choose on any particular day! YUCK!!!
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@Shaye's:
The fact is that most of us cannot understand whatever happened to that 20 to 30 year old body that loved bathing suits and how did it become the "around 70" body that pours like a mixture of pudding and jello into whatever shape it seems to choose on any particular day! YUCK!!!
LOVE your comment about the body that pours like pudding and jello into whatever shape it chooses! What a visual!
Oh yes… the 20 year old head never catches up to the body that is ..... I don't think the head and the body ever quite mesh as we get older. BUT when we can accept imperfection (based on someone's idea of perfection) we can spend more time enjoying instead of sitting at the pool with guts sucked in, boobies up, and holding the most fashionable poses. Have you noticed lately that models for skin care, makeup and clothing ads are getting younger and younger? Not uncommon for an 18 year old to be in a skin care ad now. They SHOULD have good skin at that age! Ridiculous! -
And how I admire men in that you don't hear stories about "I can't find a good pair of swimming shorts/trunks anymore".
Men - 1
Women - 0 -
And how I admire men in that you don't hear stories about "I can't find a good pair of swimming shorts/trunks anymore".
Men - 1
Women - 0Men have their own problems with fashion. Am I the only one who thinks bathing trunks extending below the knee are the antithesis of sexy? I feel sorry for young boys who must swim with all that material dragging them down! ("shorts" have suffered the same fate. I do love watching old episodes of Magnum P I and seeing Tom Selleck in real shorts!)
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I'm still laughing!! This sums me up and is the reason I don't go with my friends to the Seniors Hour at our local swimming pool!!!
