the most pleasant shopping excursion...EVER

so. i've gone bra shopping before, right? i know the drill. it's worse than shopping for jeans.

1. gather up every style of bra that says the right cup size and something near the right chest size.
2. take as much of your loot to the fitting room as the nasty counter lady will allow.
3. try on each one of them, sorting into two piles:
a] get these out of here, they are painful and/or goofy looking, and
b] these aren't the devil's own creation [maybe a lesser demon's, but you know, we'll take what we can get].
4. repeat until your loot is gone through, holding on to the those bras that aren't absolutely horrendous.
5. keep trying on the b pile, praying that something has changed between "fittings" and that that miracle has resulted in a bra that actually fits.
6. walk out of the store frustrated, with possibly one bra that you're not entirely happy with, but which will do until the next trip to hell.

well, my mother gave me the gift of bras for my birthday, the whole "buy two or three, wait a few months, buy two or three different bras if the first don't work out long term, or buy two or three more of the same if they do" thing. [i know, most people don't actually want under garments for presents, but i'm different in many, many ways]. the stipulation was that i go to a reputable store that specialized in bras. i couldn't have been happier, but i also had no idea what kinds of places would specialize in bras and not also specialize in leather and lubricants. [which, for the record, i am not interested in]

well, i found a place that fits women with mastectomy bras, which is about as personal a fitting as can be, i guess. surely, if these people couldn't help me, no one could. still, i figured i'd be there at least an hour, as bra after bra was paraded through the fitting room.

folks. people. readers. i called to see when there was a fitter. there was one there most of the time, and indeed, at that particular time. i drove to the store. i went to the counter. i said i had just called about getting fitted for a bra. the woman nodded, led me to a room. showed me the bra they fitted for, which is designed, i quote, "to make you pointy. very pointy." i'm not interested in being "pointy," i just want to have a bra that fits. my madona phase can wait until i'm tall and blonde.

so she asked what sizes i usually wore, and comiserated about the many other experiences. she came back with two bras. i tried one on, she examined it. it fit my breasts like no other bra has. i tried the other on. same deal. one has an underwire. the other is "wireless". [and yeah, i get a kick out of the wireless pun] now the thing, gentle readers, that really gets me is this. with no adjustments to the bras, the first two fit so beautifully that we decided a third was probably unnecessary. [and indeed, the third one, tried for the hell of it, did not fit well]

for a pair of 34 dollar bras, i think my 30 minutes was well spent. what? what did i just say? yeah. that's right. perfectly fitting bras for a reasonable price cost me just half an hour. all told, including call time, gathering-of-things time, drive-past-and-turn-around time, and drive home time, i spent a whole hour. if that. can i just say, WOW.

that is the only pleasant bra-shopping trip i've ever had, and in fact, it was so wonderful that it can be called the most pleasant anything shopping trip i've had in my memory.

i am more than impressed. she even told me that i should only buy two and see how they wear. she's the sales lady. isn't she supposed to coerce me into buying up the whole selection? nice. v nice.

love and peace