Bathing Suit Season

Well, I was just feeling too good about myself the other day, so while I was visiting the local mall (which I loathe by the way) I decided to browse the offerings in the bathing suit department. Before I get into this, let me give you some background on this whole debacle.

Many years ago, I think it was in the 80’s, which I vaguely remember, I took a “girls trip” to the beach with a couple of girlfriends. We stopped for lunch at a fast food restaurant on the trip down. While we were waiting in line, some teenaged girls came in wearing bathing suit tops and cutoffs. My friend Tracey kept saying how she hated those girls because they were thin, 16 and very tan, but mostly thin. When we got back in the car, she asked me why I wasn’t pissed off seeing these very thin teenaged girls and I told her that I didn’t look like them when I as 16 so I didn’t think it was very realistic to want to look like them when I was 25 or 28 or however old we were at the time. The point is, I have always had a realistic self image I think. Even when I was at my thinnest (in high school) I had issues both real and imagined. Now at 47, I have had a child, part of my lung removed, survived breast cancer (chemo, lumpectomy & radiation) and if you don’t think those throw some hard facts in your face, think again.

So I am in the department store looking at the racks of suits available for this summer season. As I am looking through the racks of size 8s, 10s and 12s I notice they have a tag hanging off them which reads: “Inches Away.” I remove the size 8 from the rack and hold it up for all to see and say, “Is it just me or does anyone else in here think that the woman who is going to buy this size 8 REALLY needs an inches away suit? I don’t think so; in fact I will smack her up side the head as Greenpeace is rolling me back in the water!” The sales lady and the other shoppers around all laughed and agreed with me (none of them was a size 8 either.)

I continued looking and actually found several suits I thought I would try. As I said before I was feeling pretty good about myself. So I went in the dressing room knowing that at $100 and up I would only be able to justify buying the one that made me look like a tall, willowy blond. I came out of the dressing room with all the suits back on their hangers and the sales lady asked me:
“Did any of those work for you?”
I said, “Well no, not really.”
“Why not, what was wrong?” she asked.
“Well the problem is this,” I said holding up a suit with a large, black tag hanging off of it that read something to the effect of “this suit will remove 10 pounds.” “I couldn’t figure out how to wear 8 of these at one time! And now I am going to go and drink!”

In the end, I bought nothing and am still using last years suit and that is okay, I don’t use it that much anyway. My point, if there is one is that I have always found it better to confront hostile(?) situations with a sense of humor. I’d much rather laugh than cry.