I got the afternoon shopping mall trying to buy a new bra blues

I left the house at 2:45 p.m. and told the cowboy I would be gone a short time. Four hours later I walk in the door and explain to my bewildered husband that I needed a new bra.
 I have ridiculously large breasts on a small chest and it's a wonder I do not fall flat on my face. Unenlightened women in my past have envied my abundant cleavage, silly chickadees, while I admired their sleek, athletic torsos.   Before puberty I loved to run and was wind-light  racing down grassy slopes.  And then the body changed, girlhood was gone, and this new shape caused my center of gravity to shift  from belly to chest and  my stride felt  lopsided and awkward.

My niece and I share similar genes. Melissa is a smart kid, an engineer, her father read her the National Geographic at three years of age. We talked about this situation and she said, get yourself fitted. She's a big city girl and knows things I do not. I was not looking forward to strangers wrapping tape around my semi-nude torso but I knew it had to be.
 I talked to a clerk at  Victoria's Secret but that place is unnerving and every bra pushes your breasts into your neck and they go up and down when you swallow.  This is what I want, I told the girl, I want to be able to bend over and when I stand straight again I want nothing to have moved.  "We have just the bra for you," she gushed," my boss is a 46DD cup and she wears this one jogging and it comes in magenta." I did not like the mental image that inspired and shortly afterwards left the shop.

My only other option in this farmers' town is the J.C. Penney and the lingerie fitting room is next to the electric skillets and coffee makers.  Inside are boxes of dusty hangers and the clerk handed me  nineteen, yes, nineteen different bras over the course of an hour.  I tried only a few and then read the posters about shoplifting and how to measure your own cup size until she came back. Like all women of culture I detest bra-fitting, a dehumanizing and depressing activity and I watch myself push and squeeze in three full length  mirrors.

 I buy a new bra and it's the same bra I always buy but in the new and improved size. It's called the Minimizer, not unlike the Terminator and it promises to make me look 1 3/4 inches smaller.  Dave, a good old boy sexist, was incredulous and couldn't believe I wanted to make myself appear smaller.  My body parts are not here to entertain men, I tell him. Unfortunately, this is not true and sometimes female bodies are just part of the scenery.  But as long as we have clever women like young Melissa the dark side doesn't have a chance.