Send in the reinforcements

There has been one thing on my To Do list that has been lingering, month after month. One thing that I have to keep re-writing onto each new list, every time with greater and greater pain. One thing that has been scratching at the back of my brain that I keep trying to ignore but can’t any longer: I need a strapless bra.

I bought a strapless dress to wear for Katie and Brian’s wedding, and remember saying at the time, “I can just get a strapless bra for it,” as if this would be easy. In hindsight of course, I see the depth of my foolishness.

A friend of mine is in love with her strapless bra from the Gap, and though we have completely different bodies and different breasts I thought I would be able to find something too. So I’d been putting off looking for a bra, assuming I would be able to find one easily at the Gap. You may see where this story is going – I didn’t find anything that fit me at the Gap, and am now on a search for custom made or special order bras because apparently nothing about clothing will ever be easy for me.

As I looked through the racks of bras at the Gap I noticed that they didn’t have my size. I wasn’t surprised because it’s an uncommon size. The sales clerk suggested I try the next band size up “just to see.” I could tell she didn’t believe that I’m the size I say I am, which I’m also not surprised about because they never do. I decided to humor her and took the bras she picked out for me into the changing room.

I put the first one on and it didn’t fit at all – too big in the band and too small in the cup. I paced around the changing room, wanting someone else to witness this sizing atrocity. I decided that desperate times call for desperate measures, threw modesty out the window and stepped out of my changing room into the hall. When the clerk saw me she gave a concerned and confused “Ohh. That doesn’t quite look right,” which is exactly what you’d like someone to say as they’re LOOKING AT YOUR HALF NAKED BODY. “Yeah – it’s falling down because the band is too big, and it’s gapping here because the cup is too small.”
“Hmm. Yeah. Well, we don’t have the size you’d need….I don’t think anyone has the size you’d need. But hold on – let me get Angela to take a look. Do you mind?” I’m standing in the middle of the Gap half naked in a bra that doesn’t fit at all. Clearly the time for asking that kind of question has passed, though I appreciated the politeness. “Nope – not at all.”

Angela came over with a tape measure and she and the other woman measured me all over to try to get a sense for what these high-maintenance-lumps-of-flesh-we-call-breasts require. After much deliberation and discussion and throwing numbers and letters around they concluded that…..they needed more help. “Do you mind if we get Brittney? She’s really the bra expert.”
“No – sure! Bring ‘em all in. The more the better!” And actually I really meant it because clearly none of us could crack this mystery called My Bra Size.

“Ok – whatta we got here?” Brittney asked in a very down-to-business-give-me-the-stats-and-hand-me-my-forceps kind of way. The other two clerks filled her in as they poked and measured and turned me this way and that way and talked about me as if I weren’t there until they all paused, released a collective sigh of confusion and stared at my breasts for about 15 seconds in silence. Finally one of them, as if just realizing that there was a person connected to those high-maintenance-lumps-of-flesh, said “You have amazing breasts.”
“Yeah” another said “They’re perfect. Maybe you don’t even need a strapless bra.”
“Well, this is for a wedding. It’s a family show. There will be polka dancing. No, I, I just….no. I just can’t. I need to reign them in.”
“Ok, well at least you know what size you are now, so you can probably find some place to special order online.”
“Or you can go to Lord and Taylor – they always have all kinds of different weird sizes.” And thank you, that’s enough staring at the freak show for today.

I thanked them profusely for their help, put my clothes back on and made my way to the cash register to buy underwear, which, thankfully, I have not as of yet found the need to special order.

The woman at the cash register must have heard about the sizing mystery going on in the changing room – probably because she was the only staff person not involved in the poking and prodding – and asked excitedly, “So what size are you?” When I told her she looked at me with big eyes and a big smile, looked at my breasts and said “Well that’s a great size to be – wow! I mean, what a great size to say you are!”
“Ohh, well…do you often tell people what your bra size is?”
“No – but if I was your size I would!” Clearly the tragedy of having to special order a bra was lost on her.

“What the heck? Why is this so hard? My boobs are not even that big,” I said to my sister Rebecca as we were leaving the store.
“What are you talking about?? Your boobs are ginormous and you just have to admit it. You’re a Keller. It’s in our genes.”

It’s important to note here that, growing up, everyone (meaning my sisters and parental figures) made fun of me because I had the smallest boobs in my family of double Ds and Es and Fs. So yeah, my perception is a little off. But, having had this realization, I can now add “breast size” to my list of Ways My Family Fucked Me Up. Because for some reason, being able to blame someone for your misperceptions makes the burden just that much lighter.