Being a girl who loves a project, I got kind of excited when I found out I had breast cancer. Wow, I thought to myself, I’ll be able to conduct some kick-ass research, consider weighty options, make life-altering decisions, and bask in the afterglow of my ability to handle adversity with grace and intelligence. I also thought I’d be hanging with a couple nice-sized “girls.”
Having breast-fed two children until they both got incisors left me with a couple girls that I could sometimes tuck into a “nearly-A” bra-lette from the junior department. The only problem was most juniors are small elsewhere, too, which made it difficult to find a 36 nearly-A with cups that were located at least two inches apart and straps that suspended the cups lower than the clavicle. Other than swimsuit shopping, nothing could send me into a complete and total funk like scouring the mall for a well-fitting bra. (Note the lack of a plural; I was happy to find one bra every five years and buy 10 of the same style.)
“It looks like the kids sucked the architecture out of your boobs,” my ex used to note. To his credit, he usually followed that observation with one of his basic tenets of life: Tits are for kids. It’s one reason I loved being married to my ex. While other husbands were sent into another orbit by an ample rack, mine seemed satisfied with an ample hip-to-waist ratio, which I was able to supply non-surgically.
These days I’m slightly tit-centric myself. I see breasts everywhere: in the double D-cup muffins at Starbucks, on the Bebe mannequins in the mall, under the Prana yoga tops at the gym, at my daughter’s middle school. On the first day of 6th grade, my daughter asked that I wait in the quad with her until a few friends arrived. While waiting, I noticed a mom with a blond pony tail wearing tight boot-cut jeans and a snug little black T, under which were perfect Barbie cones. “Dang,” I said to my daughter. “Do you think she’s a student? Try competing with that!” K. asked me to get in the car and go to work.
I worked for a few hours then had lunch with a co-worker, M. While sitting on the sidewalk at Chloe’s café in Noe Valley, I admitted that I’d been feeling disappointed with my surgery and was investigating further options. “Worst-case scenario,” I said, “is that I’ll be told that this is as good as it gets. And if that happens, I’ll just have to totally focus on my booty; I’ll just have to have a kick-ass ass.”
I’ll first thoroughly investigate Plan A: Getting two boobs instead of the one and a half I currently own. If the plastic surgery options are good, I’ll have corrective surgery and hopefully feel OK (fabulous, I realize, is not available) about the outcome. If the plastic surgery options are no good, then I’ll go with Plan BB, aka Plan Bodacious Booty. That’s a double-B, and I’ll take it.
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