Ode to My Water Bra

H.
2.
O - my goodness. Why didn't I buy two?

My sister thinks I have a boob complex. Let me set the record straight by telling you that not only do I NOT have a "complex," I don't even think they qualify as a pair of huts. 

On a bell curve, I'd fall around - oh wait. Let's not talk about curves, shall we?

In their divinely appointed duty, my "girls" have functioned admirably. I nursed successfully for a grand total of 24 months, and let me tell you, Elsie the cow had nothing on me. I was a veritable milk truck. Each carried at least 50 times its weight in bovine nectar. Like some bizarre Mary Poppins Carpet Bag camera trick. An optical illusion of the mammary kind.

My bodacious friends looked on in new-found envy at this freakish quirk of nature.

The respect I developed for the little troopers during that time convinced me that I could not, ever, consider surgical modifications. Even though you can get them at the mall nowadays. With cereal coupons.

They deserved better than such thankless treatment. You don't tear down historical landmarks, after all.  You preserve them for posterity by propping them up with flying buttresses! Like that Pizza tower.

We started gently, with a little padding. Not bad. If you like that lumpy look after about a dozen trips through Kenmore Dryer Hell. (I know you shouldn't put bras in the dryer. Sue me.) Plus there's that pesky under wire, capable of squirming its way not only out of its cotton casing, but to within an inch of your major vital organs during important business meetings.

We dabbled in "miracle" bras. The miracle, apparently, being what is necessary to get blood-flow to your legs while wearing one. It was like a 12-hour mammogram, without all the chatty conversation.

We experimented with those rubbery "inserts" that bear remarkable tactile resemblance to the real thing, nipple and all. But as they are synthetically encased, can get tricky when you add in the sweat factor. Think "migration" is all I'm saying here. And with all due respect to the Elephant Man, I'd rather be flat.

So, nothing yet was comfortable or architecturally sound enough for my tastes. "My tastes" being - no general anesthesia, contortionist training, prolonged stabbing pain, or power tools required with said boob-enhancing product.

I just don't understand it. Scientists get funding to study stuff like whether earthworms have consciences, or if bunions are hereditary. Why can't somebody solve the bra problem?

So my search continued. Not to say that it was all-consuming. Like I spent my every waking hour combing the four corners of the globe for breast-related products under some false superhero identity, or anything. Get real. The globe was empty, and if anybody asks, the dog got to it.

I did, however, keep covert tabs on the latest scientific developments at my local Victoria's Secret.

And then I waited another year for the good stuff to go on sale.  (It's my personal philosophy that a bra should cost less than the gross national product of Spain.)

Finally. My very own water bra! Okay, it's a little heavy. I probably won't wear it on "weighing-in" day at the doctor's office. But overall, might I say "Yowza!"

I'm buff. I jiggle, and I can make it across the Sahara without a canteen! I'm the mighty Camel-Woman. I search no more.