My gal forwarded me this, so for your pleasure:
When I was a child in the 1960s the bathing suit for the mature figure was-boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as
engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift, and they did a good job.
Today's stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a
figure carved from a potato chip.
The mature woman has a choice: she can either go up front to the
maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming
away looking like a hippopotamus that escaped from Disney's Fantasia,
or she can wander around every run-of-the-mill department store
trying to make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer
range of fluorescent rubber bands.
What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice
and entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room. The
first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the
stretch material. The Lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I
believe, by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, which
gives the added bonus that if you manage to actually lever yourself
into one, you would be protected from shark attacks. Any shark taking
a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer whiplash.
I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder
strap in place I gasped in horror, my boobs had disappeared!
Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit. It took a
while to find the other. At last I located it flattened beside my
seventh rib.
The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups. The mature
woman is now meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a
speed bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror
to take a full view assessment.
The bathing suit fit all right, but unfortunately it only fitted
those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out
rebelliously from top, bottom and sides. I looked like a lump of
Playdoh wearing undersized cling wrap.
As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the
prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtain, "Oh,
there you are," she said, admiring the bathing suit.
I replied that I wasn't so sure and asked what else she had to show
me. I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of
masking tape, and a floral two-piece that gave the appearance of an
oversized napkin in a serving ring.
I struggled into a pair of leopard-skin bathers with ragged frills
and came out looking like Tarzan's Jane, pregnant with triplets and
having a rough day.
I tried on a black number with a midriff fringe and looked like a
jellyfish in mourning.
I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I
would have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.
Finally, I found a suit that fit, it was a two-piece affair with a
shorts-style bottom and a loose blouse-type top. It was cheap,
comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My ridiculous search
had a successful outcome, I figured.
When I got it home, I found a label that read, " Material might become
transparent in water."
So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water
this year and I'm there too, I'll be the one in cut-off jeans and a
T-shirt!
