Eternal Optimism
(One woman's quest for the perfect swimsuit.)

If there were ever a clear demonstration that optimism is alive and well in this complex world, it's demonstrated during the annual ritual of swimsuit selection.

Every spring, millions of women, including myself, traipse off to department stores (conveniently distant, for anonymity purposes) in search of a swimsuit that, just possibly, can conceal their corresponding figure flaws.

If my experience is representative, this can take upwards of three months and has yet, in the sum of bathing history, to result in a "clouds parting / angels singing" experience. But I refuse to lose hope!  Science, which has given humanity the likes of space flight, genetic engineering, and yellow sticky notes, will certainly come to our rescue, eventually.

New, improved fabrics, clever engineering techniques, and state-of-the-art manufacturing processes swirl together in an ethereal cloud of magic and possibility. We live in an age of unparalleled inspiration. This may be the year, I perennially pine, that, "The Suit" will arrive.

I have developed many strategies for finding The Suit. They revolve mostly around finding a store that has incandescent lighting in the changing rooms. I'm thinking: Poland. I also like to find a place with "skinny mirrors". You've seen these before at carnivals. They're concave. Most changing room mirrors are convex, which effectively transform even Baywatch beauties into oompa-loompas.

The real trick in choosing a suit is: "not making the worst selection on record." This is not as easy as it may seem, to the casual observer.

I'd be tempted to rely on the advice of fellow changing-room occupants and store clerks, but I know they lie. Because I always do, when cornered. ("Oh yes! Giant neon polka dots. It's really you!")  Anyway, it's a well known, unspoken rule that If you can't pull off a miracle yourself, you should do your best to prevent others from doing any better. Yes, it's petty. But we're talking public bathing here. It's sink or, well, you know.

When selecting a suit, conventional wisdom is hugely overrated. For example: Black is not always slimming. I've seen plenty of water towers painted black, and without fail, they still look nothing like supermodels. Sometimes you just have to slap a giant American flag on the front, and own it.

There is little correlation between swimsuit size and normal clothing size. In fact, the tags are completely and intentionally random. This is a new extension of the "non-discriminatory" social climate. Furthermore, there is no proven method to determine, based on how a suit looks on the hangar, how it will look ON. So you can't just try on a few eye-catching suits in your "regular size." You have to try on *everything* in the store. The upside is, this doubles as the whole of my swimsuit-season exercise regimen.

Never, under any circumstances, look at swimsuits in any magazine with "swimsuit edition" printed on the front of it. There are thousands of women, this very moment, on suicide watch in various hospitals nationwide because they made this very mistake. The ostrich approach is infinitely preferable, when mental health is at stake.

Should The Suit prove elusive, one can usually salvage the situation by scoring a cute cover-up.
No matter how much time and agony I put in the bathing suit selection process, no matter how much confidence I have in my choice, I'm ALL OVER the cover-up aisle.  They just don't make drugs strong enough to make me feel comfortable strutting around half naked in public. No matter how good (I imagine) I look.

Don't shake your head! There are whole industries based on making gorgeous apparel we never want anyone to actually lay eyes on. In case we're in an accident.

Anyway, it's not like I'm asking for a lot of the bathing-fashion industry. Just a suit that conveys a pleasing balance of color, form, and functionality; is sophisticated yet daring; a suit that simultaneously accents its wearer's best features, while downplaying problem areas; stays in place; maintains its color and texture even when inadvertently tossed in the dryer; and that runs about $12.95. If someone actually invented one of these suits, they'd certainly sell a lot of them.

As it stands, you can just "be one" with bathing apparel compromise, or you can do what I do: cover your romance novel with a "Hazards of Sunbathing" book jacket and don your most fetching beekeeper frock; and look forward to next year, with eternal optimism.