Bra Nazi

I’ve met her. The Bra Nazi.

Distant cousin to The Soup Nazi:



You enjoy that snippet of The Soup Nazi? Long live Jerry. Love live him, I say!!

This post, well, it’s about boobs and bras and stuff.

My boobs are fine. They’re regular, normal, I –had-three-kids-breastfed-none-of-‘em boobs. (Well, I consider myself a never-breastfed mom since I only did 11 days of breastfeeding between two of the three.)

But, this isn’t about breastfeeding. It’s about B O O B S.

Boobielicious!

So delicious!

B to the O…. O…. B, the I, the E. Ain’t no other boobies flappin’ round like me.

Go to 1:16 on the time, you'll see what I mean...Hopefully, you all know this song; otherwise the sentence above makes absolutely no sense.

So, back to the boobs. Three kids, thirty-eight years of having a chest that’s neither too large or too small, I never really felt like my boobs were anything spectacular. I never amp ‘em up, show ‘em off (well, unless you count Spring Break Daytona ’88 where for some reason I thought I was Pamela Anderson and not only entered a wet-T contest one night, but also decided I should participate in a little bit of skin showing off a balcony at around 2 the following afternoon… Hey, it’s Spring Break, what can I say? Other than Diva is never allowed to go to Florida BY HERSELF with a bunch of friends on a bus loaded with wasted college kids… MOM? DAD? What were you thinking???

So, anyway, I accept and live with what God has given me. I’m thankful that they’re healthy (SPEAKING OF HEALTHY—OCTOBER IS BREAST CANCER MONTH—Get those suckers SQUISHED Seriously! I did, and I do, and will contiue so you should too!)

Back to the Bra Nazi story. Usually, I buy a bra, hope it fits, and get on with my day.

Probably most of you do too?

I know Oprah had a big bra show a year or two ago, and some of my friends even ventured to the city to get sized and fitted for new bras (Sue!). I used to think, “Oh, I’m OK with the bras I have.” But for some reason, I had an epiphany the other day, Not the In the Shower Epiphany, another time. And I thought, I need new bras. I need bras that lift and separate, and allow my ta-ta’s to be joyous and northbound! Not east and west, and God forbid… South…

I went to the Bra Nazi. This lady owns a store where she specializes in sizing. She’s like one of the best-kept secrets in town. I go in, originally, to look for something for my reunion, which IS NEXT SATURDAY!, and then discover she is also a Bra Nazi. They make you fill out a form, like you’re signing away your first-born. The first time I went in there and thought I should get sized, I fill out this three-page form and answer such questions like, “What size are you?”, “When did you sprout your nubbies?”, “What is your relationship to your breasts?”, “Would you describe yourself as Boobielicious?” Nah, just kidding; I made some of those up.

But when I get to the bottom of this questionnaire, I see that there is a TWENTY-FIVE DOLLAR FEE JUST TO BE FELT UP!!!

I’m thinking, “I don’t even spend $25 for THREE bras, and they expect me to pay that much just to have some Bra Nazi wrap a measuring tape around me?” I bolt outta there, using the ever so popular excuse: “I have to go catch the school bus.” It’s 9:40 a.m. There is no school bus at 9:40 a.m.

So, that night, I go get my hair cut and colored, because you know, MY REUNION IS NEXT SATURDAY! And Pam, my hair-gal and I are talking boobs for some reason, and bras. I have no idea why we were talking ta-ta’s, maybe I brought it up about my search for the perfect pom-pom holder. That’s when she says, “Oh, I go to Tina’s Closet to get all my bras.”

THE BRA NAZI!!

The next day, I go back. I tell her I need to be sized. Because I have witnesses now! I can trust her.

She throws me into a room, after, of course, I sign away… (turns out, that $25 fee is waived if you buy one of her $85 bras. Kidding, they’re not really $85)… so I’m in a room, she comes in, asks me what size I “think” I am. I tell her I am probably 38-40 C. She tsk tsks, because she is the Bra Nazi so NO ONE ever knows their ‘real’ size. She straps the tape around me, and says, “Oh, your tiny up here” meaning my rib cage area, not my cup size, but still that has me in fits of obnoxious giggles because I bet she says that to ALL the girls. And of course, she sizes me below what I think I am in the rib cage area, and ABOVE in the cup-size area…

36D.

Yeah, Right. After the fact, I wish I would have thought to say, “LET ME SEE THAT TAPE MEASURE!” Because I am sure she measures, then subtracts automatically two inches, just for good measure –hee hee, like that one? “Good measure?” That’s a play on words…

She’s got to down-size everyone. I’m thinking No way in hell is a 36 gonna fit ‘round me. She grabs some samples, tosses them to me, and I begin to strap myself in. It’s tight. Like corset-tight tight. But the cups look good, front-and-center, perky and upright, and the tightness does make me stand up a bit more erectly. So, I consider this one. Then she comes in, raves about it, tells me the back should be tight, so it doesn’t ‘ride up’ which is really what it had been doing in the previous-bra-wearing existence of my life.

I ask her to bring me a 38 just so I can ‘feel’ the difference. She scowls at me. How dare a customer doubt Bra Nazi? She says, “I’m not going to let you buy a 38.”

I promise Bra Nazi, “I won’t buy it; I just want to try it on to see how it’s different.”

She very reluctantly brings me a 38, but she did, and I tried it on, and it kinda sagged a bit, didn’t feel as ‘soldier-esque’ stand-at-attention like the 36 did.

She’s right.

I buy three of them. And they weren’t overly expensive, and I wore one out last night, and I stood a little taller, looked a little prouder, felt a bit more … hmmm… how did I feel? OK, it was tight. But not unbreathably tight, and I did feel better in my shirt, so maybe the Bra Nazis got something, but I can assure you, I am not a 36.

She’s a Bra Nazi on Crack, and I just bought the goods.