Monday, August 14, 2006

My Pal Chickie

My pal Chickie is a walking encyclopedia of relevant knowledge. Need a car? She knows where to get a good used deal. Does your child have a conundrum at school? Chickie has managed a similar issue, knows the school authorities, as well as three other mothers who have dealt with it, and she can suggest an article. Chickie doesn't advertise, though. You must discover her talents on your own. And here's a query that I posed for The Knowledge Chick: if one's daughter begins to wear a bra sometime in the next decade, what is the proper protocol? What to say? Where to go? What to do? Not only did Chickie's advice assuage my fear of budding breasts, or breast buds, as it were, but she directed me to the proper retail outlet.

I have discovered OneHanesPlace. All this time I have been writing, you, Dear Reader, as well as the ant crawling across my screen, may have thought that I was a buxom, large-breasted, womanly type of woman, whaddevvah that means. Well, no. (For extrapolation on the matter of post-mastectomy bras, stay tuned, I'm on the job.) I'm a B. Thirty four B. That's a lie. I'm in between, really. An A is too small. Yes, it is! Do I want big breasts? No. Do I wish my tuchas (ass padding) was proportional to my breast size? Yes. Do I care that much? Not nearly as much as if I suddenly grew a moustache, but a little more than if Condoleeza Rice grew a moustache. I don't think anyone else in the executive branch could grow a moustache right now, due to either a testosterone omission in their rabies series, or the intense concentration required. Nothing against Condoleeza personally, but I think she'd do well with some facial hair.

Back to OneHanesPlace, where I imagine all of the panties and bras go to gossip -"See you over at One Hanes, Thong!," - they have every single type of brassiere ever created anywhere including "Near-B"! So I don't have to look down at my small breast lolling meekly inside a B-cup, as if waiting to be joined by a partner, and I don't have to strangle my entire chest by squeezing into an A. And everything's returnable. Not the breasts - the bras.

There's a measuring guide on the site. Does every other female in the world have a measuring tape in her sewing box? My sewing box is a lame sight. It's a fake, really. I don't sew, except buttons that fell off. Someone gave me the box as a work gift and I threw in some tangled spools of thread and a pack of needles. I've used it, but it's more of an emergency management service as family members attempt to leave the house and discover holes in unseemly (terrible pun, really) places.

Obviously, I have no measuring tape at all. I look at those grids for sizing and I'm using a plastic ruler trying to figure out how many inches my bust is. The dog is peering up at me like he knows he should be embarrassed. I call out to Thing One and Thing Two "do you guys know where a tape measure is?"
Thing One says "No, but we have a yard stick."
"Um, no thanks," I holler down. I pretend not to hear him when he asks what I need it for.

Regarding the mothering of a budding girl: I am confident that Rugelah, aka Thing Two, and I, will find a mini-bra, or pseudo-bra, or, perhaps, a bra bra for her, when the time is appropriate, just as Chickie and Chicklet did a few years ago. Meanwhile, I do not have to shop for bras in the company of women who actually need them, although I did note that over at One Hanes they have many handy bra types for women who are carrying a lotta tit, a bit o' tit or some type of mix. They have post-mastectomy bras, too, so a bra for every gal who wants one. Now there's a pause, an oh my, as it's hard to end on a mastectomy note. But ladies in all cleavage and non-cleavage categories are on my mind, so there.