Boobie Trapped

(NOTE: The conference has been and gone, but I'm posting this from another blog of mine, due to requests to repeat in a public arena. I have no shame, apparently.)

I’ve got to go to Melbourne next week for a conference.

Now, I haven’t been in any kind of corporate clothing for years, and that was always part of the appeal of moving from the Copy and Sales department to being on-air in radio: no one really gets to see what you look like. You could be slopping into the studio in your slippers, but sound like a million dollars and that’s the way the listeners picture you (for some reason people always think I'm blonde, too…not sure how to take that, hmmmm)!

Anyway, thanks to a quirk of Mother Nature when I became a mother, most of my “suit” stuff no longer fits me. Aside from the little jelly belly that haunts a lot of us ladies even after we get rid of ‘the bump’, I‘m a far cry from the President of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee that I used to be at school, that’s for sure. Oh yes, I couldn’t be one of those early developers and get the goods when we were trying to attract the boys in high school, could I. Oh no, I had to be a late bloomer didn’t I?

And bloom I did.

My girls darn near require their own postcode these days!

Within minutes it seemed of finally falling pregnant with my firstborn, I went from a respectable and sorely missed C (for Cute/Compact) cup, to DD (a Desirable Double), to an F (Far out), through G (Good God), up to H (Holy Hell), and into a nappy bra once the milk kicked in. Do you know what I mean by that? Two cloth nappies folded into triangles then pinned together as a halter top in an effort to contain the massive milk-making machines. (And you will never see those photos, I can assure you.)

Not only did I set a new record in the maternity wing at our local hospital, I broke it with my next bub!

Through the miracle of weight loss one gets from breastfeeding, I soon shrunk back to a tidy little size 10-12 (ok, I’ll be honest, so it’s more like 12-14 these days). Except for the girls- still an F cup. Friends and family who said that you lose your boobs when you stop feeding, lied to me big time.

How hard is it, I ask, to find a decent dress or matching pieces to fit that sort of figure, that’s not too tight up top or too baggy at bottom?? Very. Bloody. Hard.

After a few years of looking longingly at my lovely clothes in my cupboard, I bit the bullet and gave them all away. Which left me with a fairly unexciting selection of vee neck tees (to draw the eyes upwards and away from the monster cleavage, dontcha know), oversized baseball tops (an all-out camouflage campaign), and just a couple of nice pairs of pants and skirts (bor-ing).

So when my boss says we’re off to Melbourne for a conference, it occurred to me that I needed to seriously rethink and rework my wardrobe. (Sheesh, it’s the “Style Capital of Australia”, for crying out loud! Could we not have held it somewhere called ‘Boganville’ instead?)

I take one of my BFFs with me to help me shop.

Here we pause and I make a comment about the true nature of our friendship, as a couple of days ago I again tried on the two dresses I bought with her approval. One has a nice vee front…….that darn near dips to my belly button thank you very much! The other has a 3 inch wide belt that cinches just below the boosies, and causes me to have flashbacks to the aforementioned nappy bra. *shudder*

Like anyone would pay attention to what I was teaching in the Master Class if I wore that one!!!

What was I thinking picking these dresses?

What was she thinking to let me get them??

So it’s back to the drawing board with just 2 days now to locate the perfect corporate outfit on an itty bitty budget (yes, pity my monetary assets aren't as large as my physical assets). And now I am hyperconscious of my curvaceous booty. To the point where I am positive that if the local TV news crew were out filming generic images of the crowds for a story on say, obesity, getting the sort of shots where they zoom in on the fat butts or rounded tums or generous chests going by…well, that little red light would so be blinking in my direction for sure.

I mean, when I returned the affronting belted number, the nice sales lady insisted I try on another style- also with a belt! Needless to say, even she couldn’t contain her shock, and was ever-so-helpful in refunding my money, ever-so-quickly too.

So now, with about 48 hours remaining, it’s come down to this: if I fail in my mission to camo the mammo’s, I can only hope that my Workshop is sufficiently brilliant to keep the group’s attention on the topic and not on my top.

On the other hand, if my Power Point Presentation is pathetic, at least there’ll be two points that participants will remember!

Jx
©2009