The Swimsuit Experience

It’s that time of year again. How is it that the most wonderful time of the year is followed immediately by the most depressing time of the year? Every woman in America knows what I’m talking about…the swimsuit shopping season has begun!

After months of hibernation and chowing down on delicious holiday meals, we make a trip to the local Costco or mall, only to be bombarded by Speedos and bikinis that are made for bodies of 12 year olds…certainly not full figured beauties such as ourselves! And what are we to do? It’s not even Valentine’s Day yet, and we’re sure to get bombarded with chocolates from our lovers…(we are going to be bombarded, aren’t we?)…and can we can hardly refuse the dear men. Okay, we could, but come on, it’s chocolate!! So we indulge politely as we tell him we’re watching our girlish figure so we can slip into that super sexy little number we’ve gone out and purchased for summer. And of course he buys into it (and we stuff our faces with the rest of the box once he’s out of the room, blaming the children…or mice…when he discovers the empty box a bit later.)

Now, of course, our men are expecting us to deliver come summer, so we tell ourselves we’ll start our diet as soon as we get that new suit. We’re certain to be motivated to exercise once we’ve spent all that money, right? Right… So off to the mall we go, pocketbook full of good intentions in hand.

I don’t know about you, but aside from bra shopping, swimsuits have to be the hardest thing in the world for a woman to buy. They’re so bloody expensive, and you can never find one that fits the entire body. Just read the ads in the catalogs…this one helps minimize an ample bust, that one draws the eye from a large hip, and then there’s this little number that flattens the tummy…but is there a suit that minimizes the bust, flattens the tummy and draws the eye of the beholder straight to your eyes so that he never sees your hips? Let alone your dimpled thighs? If there is, I’ve yet to find it. Yet that’s what I want. One that makes a man look deep into my eyes so I can hypnotize him before he sees the rest of me in that skimpy piece of spandex that isn’t doing the best job of covering my assets.

Sigh…but there I am, in the middle of the department store underworld, suffering and torment all around me as I witness other women going through the same agony that I’m about to inflict on myself. I look around, not sure what I’m really wanting. Some skinny little sales girl, about a size 0 dripping wet, comes and offers her help. Politely I say, “No, thank-you, I’m fine.” What I really wanted to say is, “You’ve got to be kidding me, right? What experience do you have fitting a body? I mean a real body? You’re a stick! Sticks don’t get dressed in the morning; they hang about all day on trees! What are you doing out of your tree? Go back to the woods where you belong…”

I riffled through the racks of suits, wondering which would flatter my curves and bring out the best in my dimples. I selected three or four, then went off to the dressing room. Why do men feel the need to wait around outside of women’s dressing rooms? Oh…don’t answer that.

Anyway, I squeezed myself into the first elastic garment and fearfully turned towards the mirror. All I can say is Oh My Goodness…what were these people thinking when they put that mirror in here? Was this some sort of joke? It had to be a fun house mirror…surely I didn’t look like that…where did that bulge come from? I didn’t have that last year, did I? I didn’t even bother with the other suits, just ran crying from the dressing room (perhaps I should have paid heed to the herd of women I saw in tears when I'd entered?) Once out in the mall, I regained my composure and began anew in a different store.

Something I learned that day was that each store seems to have a different type of mirror. The cheap stores have the worst ones, and they should take note of how better mirrors make crummy suits look better on bodies. By the end of the day I was willing to shell out nearly $100 for a suit that made my tummy, hips and bust look trim. In fact, my body looked so dang good in that mirror I nearly bought a two piece! Nearly…

I brought my purchase home. I was exhausted after the long, agonizingly painful day of shopping for a suit. I looked at my purchase dubiously. It’d seemed like the right choice in the store, but I was beginning to wonder now that I had it in my house. I went into the bathroom to try it on, hoping it would still hide the dimples.

Oh, dear…

City Boy…look deep into my eyes….