Bathing Suits

I understand the concept of bathing suits. I enjoy wearing bathing suits. It's just the torture of buying them that gets most of us women. They have to fit perfectly in every way. They have to make our figures look like Barbie's even though Barbie's stats are impossible, unless you're Dolly Parton. They have to hold you in where you don't want to stick out, and make you stick out where you don't, but want to! They have to cover everything you don't want the public to see, and show the areas you want to public to see. They have to fit your diameter in every place perfectly unless you want to lose them when you dive.

There is no woman alive who likes to shop for bathing suits. You look through 300 suits, carry half of them to the dressing room where the not-so-nice clerk tells you that you can only try on 6 at a time. You explain that 6 are not nearly enough, but still she insists. So you take six, leave the rest by the door and pray that they are still there when you need them. Then you have to face the hard part, stripping down to your underpants and try them on. Meanwhile you're thinking about all the women who have tried them on before you, and trying to squelch your feelings of absolute disgust. You try on 6 and of course none of them fit, but you won't go out to the door with a bad looking suit on, so you get totally dressed again and trudge out to your pile that may or may not still be there. Only 144 more suits to go! Are we having fun yet? With each suit we try on, our self esteems take another hit because we didn't realize before that we sag here and bulge there. Ahhh! The rite of spring!

We hate this, and yet we must go through the whole process because of course the 150th suit is the one that fits just perfectly! We love looking beautiful in our new suits, but finding the perfect one is like torture as a POW. We'd rather have a gynecologic exam. We'd rather have all our teeth pulled. We'd rather have a total body wax, which is just about what most of us have to do to wear these tiny pieces of cloth that we actually claim to be wearable in public. We'd rather slit our wrists.

I bet you can't guess what I'm going to do in the next 24 hours. Yep! I have to buy one. Put it off all spring. Not only do I need to buy one, but it has to be one that I will wear on a date. You read that right. I haven't given up on dating. After recovering from the initial backlash panic, I'm going sailing this weekend. What was I thinking when I agreed? I was thinking about how fun it would be, not about the torture preparing for it. Now I'm off to buy a bathing suit. No pressure there! Am I crazy?