How I Discovered I Wasn't Really Mad at My Boobs

Last night I was up late thinking about my boobs and how I was kinda mad at them. You see, the other day I was trying on dresses for my sister-in-law’s wedding, and this dress… this GORGEOUS peacock-blue dress with black lace accents, was seriously marked down to only 35 bucks and fit perfectly…

Almost. The dress was a little bit saggy around my arm-pits and chest. 

Okay, like super-saggy.

The problem was that I wasn’t boobalicious enough to fill out the dress as those people in Bangladesh who stitched it had intended. So there I was, standing in the dressing room snapping pictures of myself and sending them to my sister so she could convince me that the dress didn’t look totally idiotic, trying to decide whether I should go ahead and buy the beautiful dress and have it altered, or buy the other dress that I didn’t like as much but was the kind of fit that I could wear a sports bra and nobody would know the difference. I was getting really frustrated and it was seriously hard to think with my three-year-old rolling around on the dressing-room floor whining about being hungry or some baloney. God she’s needy sometimes.

When the saleswoman came to check on me, she was very complimentary of the dress and its fit, even though she wouldn’t make much commission on a measly 35-dollar dress.

“What about all this, though?” I said, tugging at the sides of the dress under my arm-pits. “I’ll have to have it altered.”

She wrinkled her eyebrows in consternation and said with her beautiful Russian accent, “No, you just need a good bra. It veel push you up a leetle and help to feel out dee bust.”

So I bought the dress, fed my needy kid, and headed out with high spirits for a little bra-shopping. I needed a good flesh-colored push-up bra anyway. Isn’t that supposed to be a wardrobe staple? Stacy and Clinton would thrash me with a wire hanger if they knew I didn’t have one.

I haven’t tried on push-up bras in a long time, like not since before breastfeeding. I was so excited to be reminded of my boob potential! All you need is a good bra, right? That’s what Oprah says. Yes, that’s it. A good bra will rectify any boob situation and make any dress fit perfectly.

Ummm…

Unless you have tube-socks for boobs like me; then you’re screwed. I tried on different push-up bras, with padding, without padding, plunging neck-line, full coverage, whatever. I tried on at least 10 bras. Expensive ones, okay? I was prepared to pay for cleavage.

The problem wasn’t that the bras didn’t fit me, if that’s what you’re thinking. The problem is that anything that tries to push my boobs “up” only makes them fold upwards so that my terrifyingly enormous breast-feeding nipples are pointing up at me with an accusing glare (“Look what your bratty little heathen children did to us, you bitch!”)

This folding situation I mention probably doesn’t even seem anatomically possible to some who are reading this, but I assure you… The Fold is a real thing, and it is not cute. I tried stuffing and smooshing my ta-tas every which way to avoid The Fold and produce something akin to cleavage, or even some sort of simulation of roundness, but alas, the ta-tas are too damn elongated for that glorious nonsense. I have no fat at all above my nipple, and there’s a bunch of saggy junk underneath. When I’m not wearing a bra, I can feel the bottom of my boobs rubbing their creepy fat all over my abdomen. Ew. Hand me my sports bra.

So that is why I was up late last night furrowing my brow at the ceiling in frustration and having buyer’s remorse over my peacock-blue dream of a dress. All because of my ugly boobs.

But the truth is, a big part of my late-night thought-session was realizing that, in spite of needing to figure out how the hell to fix my new dress, I really… wasn’t mad at my boobs.

But why?

I figured out it’s partly because I don’t give, nor have I ever given a crap about boobs, not mine or anyone else’s. I don’t understand the sexual appeal of boobs. In Fifty Shades of Grey there are a couple of scenes where the boobs are kind of… er… “center stage” or whatever, and in those parts I was like “YEAH FREAKIN RIGHT. SKIP TO THE NEXT SCENE.” I just don’t get the draw.

And I don’t understand the whole “breast-augmentation” thing either. Why add a bunch of weight up there to carry around while you’re trying to exercise? And OMIGOD it’s surgery, you guys! Why???

And I like sleeping on my stomach; I don’t want to throw a wrench in that situation. Nothing, not even a gorgeous rack, is getting in the way of the deepest REM sleep attainable. It’s on the stomach, people!

I am one of those people who, if I were to have even the slightest hint that breast cancer could be a probability for me, I would hack those suckers right off without a second thought, and I wouldn’t even get them “fixed.”

But the main reason I don’t resent my saggy tube socks? They fed my children. I mean HOLY SHIT – I kept another human alive (two humans, actually!)… with my boobs! THAT IS FREAKIN CRAZY. Breastfeeding was really unbelievably painful for me (not helpful that I am a huge wuss and have ZERO tolerance for pain), and I’ll admit that there were several occasions when I screamed at my innocent suckling infant because that shit hurt like a motherf#@%&r. (Sometimes I wonder if I somehow gave my son ADHD by screaming at him when he tried to suck the skin off my delicate nipples. But that’s ridiculous, right?)

The point is, by boob-tubes are life-givers. And that is amazing.

When I was a kid, I snuck into my parents’ room and found my dad’s porn stash and learned that boobs are supposed to be all about allure and sex and pleasing a man, and it was super-confusing to me. But somewhere along the line, maybe before, maybe after breast-feeding, I honestly can’t be sure, I figured it out. I learned that my saggy bazungas are so much more than a tool to be used as bait, or to turn someone else on sexually.

And I feel kind of proud of my foldy boobies for all this life-sustenance stuff. (Way to go, girls!) I totally forgive them for making dress-shopping take so long that I practically starve my toddler while she waits for me to find something that fits. I accept the boobies exactly as they are.

My seamstress aunt is coming over this afternoon to take in the dress around the armpits. I ended up buying Spanx to put under the dress. The Spanx are an insanely comfortable full-coverage slip that has some nice support for my potato sacks without trying to force them up into any shape into which they are unable to mold.

Sure, the girls won’t be all round and voluptuous and perky, but hey, we still have to respect the laws of physics, don't we? The point is, I’ll be comfortable, and the dress truly looks beautiful even with a flat chest. Besides, my tube-so… I mean, my little life-givers deserve a way more respect than some stupid push-up bra folding them up onto my chest and calling that "cleavage."

Feel free to share your feelings about boobs (Your boobs? Your wife's boobs? Boobs in general?) in the comments. (Anything degrading towards women will be deleted, FYI, just in case there are any pervs reading this.)

xoxo 

An "Aha" Moment About Energy Vampires (They're Not Sexy Like Edward)

I came across a term the other day that made me have one of those “Aha” moments that Oprah used to blabber about all the time before she made her own TV network that nobody watches. The term is:

Energy Vampire

The Nothingness that Almost Ate Me Once

One time, as a girl of maybe nine or ten, I lay half-asleep in bed, terrorizing myself with unanswerable questions, my heart racing, until finally I became so overtaken by fear that I got out of bed and started towards my parent’s room, which was across the hall from mine and my sister’s. But I didn’t like to wake up my parents for no good reason, because it annoyed them, so I paused in front of the full-length mirror that hung on my door, debating firstly, whether or not I was truly terrified enough to wake my mom, and secondly, how on earth would I explain my fears?

“Mom, I’m afraid of something that is nothing…”

Holy Crap I’m a Tiger Mom - ADHD and Me, Part III

Lucas comes home with unfinished work in his folder, a note from the teacher requesting that I have him finish it. In the behavior section of his folder, there is a frowny-face. Not good. These past few weeks have been bumpy; I blame the Easter Bunny and his damn candy-filled eggs.

I make Lucas complete his work, plus I add a few pages from the workbooks that we have lying around. Then he needs to practice violin. I hover nearby, offering suggestions. He is mostly compliant because he knows he’s in trouble from the school stuff. Sometimes violin practice can be… messy.

The Post That Isn't About Gay Marriage or How to Lose Weight by Juicing

So I got an award from another blogger. WAIT! NO! DON’T LEAVE! I promise I’ll say something interesting. Or I'll try to. Whatever. It's subjective; I can only do what I can do.

Most Kids are NOT Like Hansel and Gretel and Would Get Boiled in the Cauldron. Probably.

Lucas, who has ADHD and may or may not realize at any given moment that someone is kicking a ball directly at his head, tends to sort of do his own thing most of the time, unless someone redirects him. He really enjoys playing with his shadow and pointing out the clouds that are shaped like fighter-jets. ADHD parents know what I’m talking about. So the Hubs and I are constantly redirecting him; all the time, everywhere we go… including at soccer. 

Pepsi Can Bite Me, But Now I Want a Camaro - Yes, THAT Video

Pepsi Max and Chevy win the award for best ad ‘campaign’ EVER in the history of the universe. This shit was just published YESTERDAY, you guys, and already has had well over 7 million views.

 

Duh, it’s fake. Obviously. They never said it was a real prank (in writing). There’s no way they could have legally done a stunt like that on an open public road, because if they had, the driver of the white car at 2:28 would own both Pepsi and Chevy. Plus when have you EVER seen a random cup-holder sticking out of the dashboard of a brand new car??? A little "convenient," eh, Pepsi? However, in spite of being obviously fake, I thought the video was pretty well done.

Perhaps most impressively, Pepsi and Chevy successfully managed to circumvent the entire TV commercial industry. They didn’t have to pay some ridiculous sum of money to buy airtime for this little video-that-isn’t-a-commercial. Nope; they just posted it on YouTube and let word “leak” out about the video.

Genius level? Sir Isaac Newton.

And I love how they made the whole thing look like it was all Jeff Gordon’s idea.

Genius level? That guy that owns the organic grocery store. (Kind of obvious, but well-thought-out nonetheless.)

And the fact that two companies got together to share the cost of making the video? Those greedy bastards are advertizing two products at once, basically for free, and most people probably don’t even know they’re watching an advertisement.Wait. No; THREE COMPANIES! I don't watch Nascar or whatever it is that Jeff Gordon does, but in his own way he is a product, and he just got a butt-load of awesome publicity thanks to this campaign. Three companies, all feeding off of each other and the susceptible American public. Like leeches.

Genius level? Albert Einstein.

I was so overwhelmed by the ingenuity of this partnership that I had to remind myself that Pepsi and its horrible fake ingredients stand for everything I hate about the food industry. Pepsi, even though you’re awesome at marketing I still hate you. Go to hell with your obesity factory.

Chevy, you get a pass because Camaros are awesome. Rawr. 

Jeff Gordon? Huh? Who? I think I've heard some of my redneck (and proud of it!) relatives mention you here and there. As for myself, whenever I see cars driving in circles on TV I get all frantic and jumpy with the remote, desperately trying to find a home-renovation show to watch. Or golf. Or infomercials. Or I just lay face-down in the crack of the couch and breath in the smell of leather. But if your real-life job was really to scare the crap out of unsuspecting car-salesmen, my opinion of you would be dramatically improved. 

What did you guys think of this little stunt and all parties involved?

UPDATE: (didn't know this when I published the post) - GM had no part in the video. So there goes my theory about capitalist blood-suckers joining forces for the sake of pure awesomeness. In that case, Pepsi is stupid; they just gave the Camaro a shit-ton of free advertizing!