I know this may come as something of a disappointment, but I've actually been fairly well since June. Well, not entirely, of course. Should we run into each other in the street, feel free to ask about my mysterious bruises, 'senile' spots (google them) and the numb patch on the side of my big toe.
But looking back over the various subjects I've covered on this blog, I realise now that what it's been missing is something about my breasts. Obviously nobody's actually asked about them (don't be shy now - I am on twitter), but given that recent entries about my wooomb have smashed through the embarrassment ceiling, I'd say my boobs are a whole level down in terms of intimate body parts.
Also, I might pick up a few more random-googling readers if I type the word breasts and few more choice synonyms within this post.
Earlier this month I went to New York, by myself, for four days. Suffice to say it was as fun and liberating as it sounds, and I have now started a movement amongst all my married friends with kids about how no actually this really is a good thing for honestly everyone in the whole household when you put it like that.
Whilst there, I went to Saks 5th Avenue to be measured for a bra. Mostly because my friend Maddy did it several years ago, and came home with the most useful motto known to woman, which I genuinely say in my head at least once a day whilst positioning each bosom inside its bra cup: 'Scoop and center' (pronounced senna). Try it, it's so helpful.
Also because having put on and lost a bit of weight a few times recently, breastfed a couple of babies in the gaps and not being 20 any more, I thought it would be a good idea to find out if I'm actually wearing the right size. Another friend got measured at Harvey Nicks recently and was appalled to be told that her boobs are now different sizes, by half a cup.
History doesn't relate what one does about this - can you get extra bits of moulded padding to go in the smaller one? Is there a make of bra that comes in two halves, and you choose the cup size for each tit? That would be quite fun, if only from a fashion point of view - each half could be a different colour!
In fact, if I'm ever forced to go on the Apprentice, that is going to be my business plan. I'm sure that woman from last year who did the different shades of nude tights for a range of skintones has already realised there's a whole sub-market for people whose legs are not quite the same colour. And I don't just mean those, like me, who applied one brand of fake tan to one leg earlier this summer, realised it had gone off (it was grey-green and smelt) and so put a different brand on the other leg (true story).
So with a small amount of trepidation, I went to the very top floor of Saks, which you can't even reach by lift, sorry elevator; you have to take a special escalator from the penultimate floor. I was the first person to enter the lingerie floor that day, thanks to jetlag and a very early start. It was deathly quiet and cold - do they turn the aircon up especially to make all nipples that dare enter easier to locate?
There was an intimidating array of very beautiful, insubstantial undergarments in every colour under the sun - Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Marks & Spencer any more. I made the mistake of going over to the La Perla section first, looked at a flimsy bra, and then at its price tag, which was $367. I felt a bit sick.
Nevertheless, determined to go through with it, I went over to an assistant, cleared my throat, and asked in a small nervous voice if I could be fitted for a bra. She gave me a look of genuine confusion and replied with a trace of annoyance in her voice: "What?!"
I know I have a British accent, but you'd think that given our surroundings she could've had a pretty good guess, and not reacted like I'd just asked to be fitted for rollerskates or something.
After apologising for disturbing her, we eventually managed to communicate without resorting to sign language, and she took me over to meet Olivia. Olivia was a matronly woman of about 4ft, who may have once played a fed-up Latino housekeeper in an episode of Modern Family. Her appearance was so incongruous she could almost have been an oompa loompa if you'd only ever watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in black and white.
"Why you want measuring?" she shouted at me while we were still on the shop floor. As she led me towards the changing room, I kept my eyes down and muttered something about having had two children recently, and gone a bit saggy. Once in the changing room, she looked me up and down like a cowboy assessing a horse, and told me to take my bra off.
Olivia asked me where my bra - a very nondescript, nude, t-shirt bra - was from. "Gap" I replied.
"Gap?!"
"GAP."
"Gap?"
"Gap!"
"The Gap?!"
"Yes, the Gap!"
Olivia shook her head and actually tutted. Thus began an encounter during which I slowly realised I was only ever going to let Olivia down.
She brought me some plain bras to try, each of which she did up rather tightly. I indicated that I wasn't keen on the resulting area of overspill that I want to call side boob, but know that that's not what the term is commonly used for, given that it's commonly used when describing Jennifer Lawrence. And although Jennifer and I have a lot in common, it's more in the strong feminist department, rather than our physiques.
Perhaps now is the time to coin a phrase for this specific bit of overhanging flesh. It's not so much the side of the boob, but the bit above, just below your armpit. The muffin top bingo wing of the side boob. I think I'll call it the avalanche.
"Oh. We can no do anything about that," Olivia said sadly (although not without mirth), shaking her head. Then she demanded to know which one I wanted to buy.
I explained that I didn't actually want a flesh-coloured, everyday bra (if I was going to suffer this indignity, and pay a lot of money, I wanted a statement bra to show for it) but a special bra. She frowned. A special, sort of, you know, sexy bra, I went on, taking care not to make eye contact. She still seemed somewhere between bewildered and disgusted. "Lace?" I whispered.
Olivia sighed. I stupidly thought that further description would be a help to her. "Do you have anything in any colours? I like green, or blue!" I offered unhysterically. "No," she replied firmly, and folded her arms. Then she made a noise which I can only describe as a scoff. I made a small, apologetic noise, and like Robert de Niro in a poker game, she threw me a bone: "Maybe we do red."
Off she went, to find something to please this incredibly difficult customer, and I heard her complaining in the corridor to her colleague - "She want SEXY bra!"
At this point the penny dropped. I hadn't realised that I wasn't going to be able to choose my own bra. Stupidly, I thought I'd be allowed out again, perhaps armed with some advice about sizes and styles, to browse. But no, this was effectively a hostage situation.
Olivia returned with a selection of the tackiest bras I've ever seen. What about this one, she asked, while bolting it onto me. It was a nasty shade of pink, almost entirely see-through, with gold metallic bits on the straps. "You need move this...there" she instructed, indicating with gestures but thank God without actually doing it herself, that my nipple was in the wrong place. I rearranged. "Just a LEETLE bit!" she castigated. We eventually got there.
Next I tried on a horrible red one, which she described as pretty. I wondered whether I ought to explain that I wasn't actually a hooker.
As I ruefully rejected one bra after another, I foresaw the future and realised that whatever happened, I was going to disappoint Olivia. Whatever I bought, or didn't buy, would only earn her disapproval. Plus I began to suspect she was deliberately bringing me bras that made the avalanche bulge worse.
In case you've not been able to picture the scene up til now, the changing room was about the size of a small bathroom, but contained only Olivia, me and a chair. There was no music to fill in the awkward silences between us. Even a bit of Lionel Ritchie would've helped.
When Olivia was struggling to do up the hooks at the back of one bra, I had a moment of weakness and actually bent my knees so as to lower my torso a bit, because she was so short. I am 5' 8" and I was just trying to help. Maybe that's why she became a bra-fitter, I mused - because bazookas are constantly in her eyeline. Anyway, she told me off. It was a dreadful faux pas. I caught sight of myself in the mirror doing this sort of bob and for the first time felt like laughing.
Next time the nipple issue came up, she did a sort of jiggle, like a special Latin dance with her elbows, in order to show me how to get my boobs perfectly tucked inside the cups. I had a stab at it, but as usual got it wrong. So then she actually held the cup and jiggled it herself to get my boob into place. Like trying to get a pillow into a pillowcase.
Hang on a second - the bra looked pretty good! And it was navy blue. Olivia couldn't contain her surprise that it not only fitted, but looked nice. I started thinking that maybe this was going to turn out okay. Also that I could actually get used to having my bra done up for me every day. Like Brienne in Game of Thrones, having her breastplate and the rest of her armour strapped on by Podrick before going into battle.
Olivia knocked my newfound confidence out of me by bringing me the matching blue 'panties' to try on. I could not for the life of me work out which way round they were meant to go. The label was at the side, not at the back. It didn't make much difference actually, because they were a bit small, and I was never going to spend $60 on a pair of pants that I was never going to wear because they didn't fulfil the basic function of pants, ie cover up my bottom in crucial areas.
Finally, I emerged from the dressing room. Olivia was waiting at the till like an American dentist with a shotgun two feet away from a broken lion. She couldn't hide her displeasure that I hadn't brought out one of the nude t-shirt bras she'd brought me, as well as the navy one. She told me several times in front of her colleague that I needed it and that 'they' (presumably my breasts) looked nice in it. When I stood my ground she then blatantly rolled her eyes.
As she scanned it in, she asked "You want pay in jeeby peas?" The next fifteen seconds were so confusing I almosted funked the whole thing and did a runner. Eventually she turned the screen towards me, and I understood she was asking whether I wanted to pay in pounds (GBPs) or dollars.
As I walked away, in my the gap bra, I could feel her shaking her head again in cross dismay. I had clearly put her out in the most terrible way. Interrupted her day, despite there still not being a single other customer in the department.
Then I saw the perfect bra. A greeny turquoise, it was the right style, the right size, and it was $30 cheaper. Plus it was in the sale, so there was another 15% off. And there were matching pants. I looked around - Olivia had disappeared. Did I dare go back into that changing room holding cell for round two?
"Oh, you still here?" shouted a familiar voice across the shop floor, in disbelief tinged with hilarity. I hid the underwear I was holding, and did a lap of the whole lingerie floor to see if there was another changing room. The Stella McCartney sales lady was so nice and friendly - like, I dunno, a shop assistant - but apparently I couldn't use their changing room unless trying on Stella McCartney gear, so I had to go back to Olivia's turf.
I returned. Somehow I got myself into a changing room and was allowed to try it all on by myself. All I could think was quick, be quick, for the love of God, before Oliva gets back. Then there was a knock on the door "You need help?" she asked menacingly. I reassured her, but clearly not loudly enough. "You still in there?" she threatened next.
Remember that episode of Friends where Chandler is trying to give up smoking, and borrows a hypnotism tape he plays while he's sleeping? 'You are a strong, confident woman' it tells him, so he does not need to smoke. I am a strong, confident woman, I told myself. I will not be intimidated by a shop assistant. I am Brienne of Tarth.
I went out to purchase the turquoise underwear, which I liked much more than the $99 navy bra I was practically forced to buy at gunpoint. "Oh, THEES colour," Olivia said, flaring her nostrils, in an if-only-you'd-said, but I-never-expected-any-more-of-you kind of way.
"But these panties are same size. And they fit, and the other ones didn't?" she asked, eyeing me with suspicion and open disbelief. I mumbled something about the cut.
"Very hard to get thees sale price," she warned, fixing me in the eye - and then waited for some kind of response. Was I supposed to say thank you? Was there a password?
Eventually, she asked if I wanted to pay in BJs. What the actual fuck? She really did think I was a hooker! I may have let out a small splutter. "I mean in jeeby peas" she corrected herself, though this whole currency business was clearly yet another unreasonable demand on her time.
Before I left, she suddenly asked me a whole new type of question. "How old your children?"
"They're two and four," I replied, thinking that this would be a nice note on which to leave things. "Oh," she replied, nodding sadly, as if that was no excuse for still having a mum tum or avalanching boobs. I smiled defiantly, and left. She didn't tell me to have a nice day.
On my last morning in New York, I returned the navy bra. Thankfully, there was no sign of Olivia.
