Sandy Slaga

Boobs by Vicki

Last weekend the seventeen-year-old announced that she was in dire need of new bras and asked if I’d go shopping with her.

It’s a rare occasion when I am asked to be seen in public with either of The Teenagers. And an invitation by my daughter to go shopping is like finding a hair of natural color on my head. Shocking, awesome and not to be missed.

After repositioning my lower jaw, I smiled nonchalantly and quipped, “Sure, honey. Sounds fun.”

Wrong answer.

“Fun? Mom, it’s just for bras. And I’m going to Victoria’s Secret.”

Now I’ve been a bra consumer since sixth grade. No brag, just fact. And the workhorse in my underwear stable was a J.C. Penney white cotton number. No push-ups. No demi cups. No plungers. No miracles. Just white cotton, elastic straps and a prayer to St. Bernadette, who I had decided to name as my personal patron saint of cleavage.

Bra shopping with my mother was like buying that-time-of-the-month supplies. An event to be endured and offered up as a down payment on the penance I’d get from Father Michael at confession the following week.

Each trip was the same. I’d tell Mom I was capable of maneuvering the elevated parts of my chest into a bra in the J.C. Penney dressing room. Mom would say no, we needed to be sure it fit, and that’s what the bra ladies were for. I figured there were only two parts that needed maneuvering, and I could manage. But it took three of us to accomplish the feat. My mother, the bra lady with the wrinkly cold hands and me. In a dingy little dressing room with dark brown drapes on rings for a door.

Flash forward to Vicki’s. After choosing several bras of assorted colors and styles, my daughter is escorted to a dressing room the size of my bathroom by a young woman in sleek black slacks with a headset. She enters the dressing room alone and emerges a few minutes later, a bright yellow demi cup in hand.

St. Bernadette, you can sit this one out.