One More Reason to Avoid Bra Shopping

Ladies, I think we can all agree that bra shopping is the pits.  If you don't have boobs (either because you are male, pre-pubescent, or a carpenter's dream), you are not missing out on this process.  I have had my fair share of Goldilocks experiences with my boobs.  First they were too small.  Then they were too big.  Then they were juuuust right.  But that had absolutely no impact on my ability to find a well-fitting bra.

Usually, the act of stripping down from the waist up and trying on bra after bra after bra is traumatizing enough.  Nothing is more futile than the quest to find that one magical double-barrel slingshot of glory that doesn't give you uniboob or accentuate your back fat or exacerbate the fact that your left boob is totally half a size bigger than your right one (overshare?  I'm not sorry).

Sometimes, though, things just get weird.

A few months ago, I was trying to find a bra to wear under my wedding dress.  In typical Katie fashion, I spent more time trying to find appropriate undergarments for the dress than I spent finding the dress itself (if you're curious, the dress part took half an hour, so don't go around thinking I spent 6 months trying to find a pair of underwear).  So after Victoria's Secret let me down big time, I found myself in Macy's trying on a boatload (enough to fill a small canoe or possibly a rowboat) of flesh-colored bras.  I had just sent my mom back into the fray to grab a different size for me, and was pulling a shirt over my head to check the aforementioned uniboob factor of yet another bra, when I heard a shaky voice beckoning from the the hall of the dressing room.

"Excuse me...excuse me..."

I didn't know who the voice was addressing, so I ignored it, thinking it was a saleswoman trying to get someone else's attention (because I have this kind of unhealthy delusion that I am mostly invisible in public places until a moment when it is convenient for others to notice my presence, like when I need something).  So I'm checking out the bra, and there's no uniboob, but, ohhh, wait, I think I see a little bit of back fat and all of a sudden my dressing room door creaks open.  Now I'm the one saying excuse me.

I turn away from the three-way mirror and spy a tiny, wrinkled form that can only charitably be called an old woman.  A more apt description would be "leather suitcase left too long in the desert, onto which someone has superimposed a road map of spider veins resembling the I-95 corridor."  Her appearance was ghastly.  I truly thought I had passed out in my dressing room and awoken to the ghost of bra shopping past.  I was mentally preparing myself for a trip back to my first bra shopping experience, where she would show me how chubby and innocent I used to be, when she spoke.

"Where did you get those shoes?"

"My wha...?"  I was so confused.

"Your SHOES, where did you get them?"  I could see I was already frustrating her.  I seem to have that effect on old people who aren't my grandmom (because she rules the school).

"Uhh, Zappos.com?"

"Where?"

"Zappos...dot com?"

"What are they?"  Come on lady, what is this?  I'm trying to find a well-fitting bra so my jugs aren't grazing my kneecaps when I'm you're age, now leave me alone.

"They're, uh, they're Sperry Topsiders." 

"Say again?"

"Sperry...Topsiders?"  This time a little louder, a little slower.  I was starting to regret never learning sign language, and was very sorry I had left my Semaphore flags at home.

"Oh, I never heard of those..."  What?!  Granted, she did look as if she had spent the majority of her life in an arid location, so maybe she never saw the ocean or a boat, and therefore never saw anyone wearing such shoes for their intended purpose...but, really?

Then she proceeded to tell me that she was looking for comfortable shoes, because she had broken her foot, and had a hammer toe, and bunions, and oh my god she went on...and on...and on...Then I noticed she didn't have any bras in her hand, and had apparently wandered into the lingerie department dressing room just to peek at women's shoes under the stall doors.  And let's not forget that she opened my door without even knocking, which would still have been weird.  God I wish I had been topless, because no person should die without being topless while talking to an old woman about boat shoes.  I guess I'm just going to have to orchestrate that one myself, and now it's going to seem totally forced and inorganic.  Shit.

But I digress.  She asked me again where I got the shoes.  I repeated, "Zappos.com...it's a website."  She muttered, "Oh, well I don't have a computer," and tottered away.  Just like that, she was gone. 

Fortunately, my mom returned just in time to witness this last exchange.  Otherwise, I would have had a hard time believing it actually happened.

And that, friends, is why I don't like to go bra shopping.