h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have not listed a rant in eons, and you all are now entitled to one. This is something I have ranted about for as long as I have been wearing a bra and is something I will continue to rant about to all of those who have not heard this yet or have not the sense to tell me that they’ve already heard it whether or not they have. INJUSTICE! I shall scream until my dying day.

First of all, the majority of readers will have found out what a bra is and what its function is by this point. If not, have someone explain it, as it will not be covered. Second of all, if any mention, veiled or otherwise, of any part of the anatomy scares, horrifies, or shocks you, please, don’t read this or feel free to ignore that and harass me. Harassment is preferred, really. Third of all, this is a semi-narrative piece. It is not meant to convey any deep inner meaning, nor is it meant to change anyone’s life; it was written simply to give me a fresh mode of ranting this particular subject.

Now, I may continue with the horrible tale of….BRASSIERE SHOPPING…

There comes a point in time where every female must go to purchase new undergarments, regardless of whether she wears them regularly or not. It is a time that most love, but it is a time when the almost cry. I am one of the almost. I classify the most as the irregulars. They make clothing for really tall people, really short people, really fat people, really skinny people, really curvy people, and really stick-figured people. They do not make clothes for people who are built averagely and classically. For people like me, pants waists gap, pants legs drag, shirts fit in the shoulders and look like a potato sack everywhere else, shirts are too short in length, and bras are harder than hell to find.

It is the bra that draws me to this obscure store in the most obscure strip mall within fifty miles of my home. I flock here when the time comes to purchase a bra that fits. Racks are stretched out before me, hangers glittering in the glow of fluorescent light, while a handful of people walk their lengths. I know what I am looking for. I am on a mission. I am a hunter. I am a great hunter. I will seek, kill, and bring home my victims.

I walk quickly to where I find my prey. Or where I think my prey should be. I stare, unblinking, at the rack in front of me. Maybe, if I don’t move, I think, they will come along, but I know that bras do not travel without aid. My heartbeat rises as I move from my position considering that the store has been rearranged.

I look up at the large teal signs posted at intervals that glare with white letters the sizes of the contained apparel. I walk up and down row after row, squinting my eyes with hope that my prescription is off and my size is really represented through the text. My movements become frantic as I slowly become aware that my size is not found on any of the rows of racks.

Panic has found its way into my brain. Rationality has left me like my bra size has left this store. I am forced to attack. I am a threatened animal and react instinctively. ‘Where,’ I cry, grabbing the clerk’s arm, ‘is this size?’ I am almost knocked down in shock. The elastic of my world has just stretched to limits that it will never return to its original position from.

THEY NO LONGER STOCK MY SIZE AS TOO FEW PEOPLE WEAR IT!!!!

…but there is hope. The clerk does, however, feel obliged to tell me that the unsold bras of my size can be found in a bin in the back corner of the store where they are marked down to dirt prices in hopes that someone with a JJJ bra size will buy an A cup.

I tread lightly and cautiously, in fear that what I stalk flees. I pounce on the wire bin that holds is said to hold my size and ravage it. I am searching for my size. Twenty-one undergarments are produced from the depths of many hundreds.

As I begin to examine the undergarments, I throw two back because the band size was off. I throw two more back because they are made push-ups. I throw three back because they are made of a synthetic that would suffocate a non-oxygen breathing creature. I throw four back because they are sports bras. I have plenty of those; you can find them anywhere. I throw one back because it has nonadjustable straps. I throw four back because the cup size was off. And the rest…

THE REST HAVE UNDERWIRES!!!!

Hey, and underwire, no big deal, right? Obviously it’s a big deal because I’m making a seemingly big one out of it, surely you can figure that out, right? Good. Now we may move on. I hate underwires. People with small breasts do not need underwires. They DO NOT need underwires. If a person with small breasts needs an underwire, than their body is the size of a pigeon. An underwire in a bra for a person who doesn’t need (or doesn’t want, this, I’m sure, is all a matter of opinion) one, is hell. They pinch, they do not reflexively bend (so if you stick them in the wash with a load of rugs (yeah, don’t have me wash your clothes or you’ll send up with pink underwear (who looks at your underwear and cares has serious problems) they end up with bends that make you look like you have seventeen small boobs instead of two normal ones), they serve no purpose, they set of metal detectors, and they are just a general pain in my normal-sized ass which I can never find pants that fit for.

I, being the tolerant and sensible person I am, have found a way to solve this problem in most garments. The solution is to cut a small slit in the bra so you can pull the torture device out. They are the freaks. They are the bras with the wires sewn, permanently, no chance in hell of removing the thing without destroying the bra that you spent four years finding, in. All were white.

I am left with two. One is orange. Bright orange. Fluorescent, burn your retinas orange. I take a deep, cleansing breath and look at the second. It is camouflage. I take another deep breath and momentarily consider screaming and leaving the store. I realize that my mother is standing right next to me and that she has removed every ‘unsuitable’ bra from my room. Anything unsuitable would have stretched out elastic, a pinhole, multiply resewn straps, etc.

They are of the right size, but the colors. Whenever I want a bra in an unusual color, I can only find white. Whenever I want a bra in white, I can only find white. So how come when I am thankful to find a bra of any color that fits I find them in the most godawful colors on the face of the earth? Hell, even olive would have been better.

My mother finds this amusing. In some morbid, perverse way, I suppose it is, but I am not laughing at this point in time.

Alright, rationality creeps into my brain yet again as I survey the brassieres I have thrown back. I will cross-examine the reason that I threw each back and see if it is worth it to purchase and wear this garment.

The bras had a band size that was off. This is not good. There is no way to alter a band size unless you want to extend it. Two inches makes a big difference. The cup size may fit, but you buy bras to hold your breasts in place. What’s the point in wearing something that is too big in the band that renders the garment useless for you to wear? There isn’t. (What about training bras, my mother asks. Sure training bras fit in the band size, but the part that is supposed to hold the breast is so small that people who are built like ironing boards find them painful. I am not built like an ironing board and wish to breathe more than once a day without excruciating pain.) So the bras join their comrades in the bin.

The bras were push-ups. This is not good. Push-ups were probably invented by a masochist. The construction is so tight that any circulation is cut off to the breast. This, you may say, isn’t so bad, because then you can’t feel the pain of the tormenting constriction. Well, I’d rather cut them off than be bound up with my boobs up to my chin. So the bras join their comrades in the bin.

The bras are made of an insufferable, suffocating synthetic. I’m sorry, I can’t wear fabrics that don’t breathe. I live in the South and 40C temperatures do not permit me to wear plastic directly on the skin. So the bras join their comrades in the bin.

The bras are sports bras. Sports bras are easy to find for any size. They are stretchy everywhere. They have no wires. I have at least half a million at home. Sports bras are great, but you can’t wear them with most clothes. The straps are too close together, so you can see them unless you’re wearing a collared or turtleneck shirt. The backs have those cross-branching straps that can be seen in any shirt that has a low or open back. The bras join their comrades in the bin.

The bra had nonadjustable straps. I don’t have boobs that are right beneath my chin. I don’t have boobs that are down at my waist. Nonadjustable straps think that you’ve been wearing a push-up bra so long that your breasts have frozen in place at your neckline, or they think that you tuck your breasts into your pants with your shirttail. The bras join their comrades in the bin.

The bras had incorrect cup sizes. If you wear a bra with a too large of cup size, the bra does not serve its purpose and makes you look very silly if you try and fill the quarter inch gap between your skin and the cup. If you wear a bra with too small of a cup size, you are faced with many predicaments. You can end up in the same situation as a push-up, or you can end up with an amazing phenomenon they call the ‘double boob’ where each boob looks like two stacked on top of the other. The bras join their comrades in the bin.

The other solution. Wear no bra. I am hyperactive. I move around a lot. I do not want to bounce all over the place, as it is rather painful after awhile. Besides, females are required to wear the proper undergarments at any institution of learning in Georgia. I must attend an institution of learning.

I turn my head slowly to look at the two selected garments and let out a quavering sigh and thrust the garments toward the clerk. I am simply glad I do not have to wear panties that match bras, as I’d never, ever find them for these. The blue camouflage will be much easier to hide than the fluorescent orange…if I hide in an ocean of multicolored blues. I wouldn’t even try to hide the orange. It would be impossible. The bras are tucked into a white paper bag. You can still see the horrid, vivid, damaging colors through the paper.

The dejected look on my face is enough to garner pity from my mother. We will try again later, she says. It will be an unproductive venture into the wild world of feminine undergarments that I refuse to suffer again for the yield of disappointment.

I return home and stare at the purchase. Desperation is going to drive me to do something I would never, ever consider. Bleach. I refuse to go into details about how the transformation was achieved, as it’s still a very painful recollection. Let it suffice to say that fluorescent orange lives as sort of a brownish yellow and the camouflage is sort of a smeared gray green.

boy am i glad i don't have to buy bras

Be very glad.

I am, oh I am. However buying things for males who are 6'2" tall and weigh 90kgs is no mean feat either, underpants are the easiest, but jeans, i could tell you stories about jeans store that will make you want to chock to death on the nearest brassiere

Try being 5'3" and weighing 100lbs. with a butt and a small waist. Jeans? They don't make them that fit for me. Every time I buy pants, I am forced to make alterations. I'm eventually going to start making all of my clothes.

Self sufficiency sounds like a good idea somtimes

It's all it's cracked up to be, that's certain.

Its a lot of hard work, you get no real spare change and if your crops fail, your f****d. I would prefer a job for a few years and retire early to a nice 30 acre block and do the whole self sufficient thing, but with super to fall back on.

I wouldn't mind the whole self sufficient thing, but I have grown extremely fond of air conditioning and running water.

In England we have no use for air conditioning.

You probably don't get 40-45C summers, either.

And of course you giving up some of your land for a small windfarm for free electricty will fix that problem

Windfarms, quite frankly, scare the ever-loving shit out of me.

Ok then, small solar farms and a diesel generator or two will therefore take its place

YAY!

Indeed, and 6 veggie patches mmm carrots

I do not think I've ever met a single person in my life who can walk into a clothes store and actually find his or her size in a nice fit. Clothes are not made for people, they are made for models.

I will therefore never find something that fits

? Clothes aren't even made for models! They tailor them to the models.

Yeah, he made a comment about eating carrots, which makes me go

Ah, so _that's_ how they do it!