The Very Tragic Water-Balloon-Bra-Stuffing Incident of 1984

When I was a little girl, I aspired to have ginormous boobies like my mom and my aunt Lisa.

They had HUGE knockers with wine colored nipples that fascinated me.

Ahhhh...the benefit of youth...

It is safe to say that the women in my family are a bit short-changed in the breast department...regarding quantity of tissue that is.

My aunt is an astounding A cup and my mom is a ginormous AA cup...

Hey, when you're little, and have breasts in the negative dimensions, a AA can look HUGE!

...Though my Gran was a whopping B cup...but she wore pointy bras that scared me, so I was never too fascinated. Just scared.

When my mom left just before my 10th birthday, she left behind a lot of crap. One such item was a padded AA cup bra. (I have never to this day EVER seen my mom wear an actual bra, but she had them in her dresser drawer.)

I snatched it up and called it my own. I wanted a bra so bad!

I wore it to basketball practice and that was the end of that. One of the 15 evil Sweeney brats (Why can't I remember her effing first name?!?!?) snapped it, called everyone's attention to my newfound boobs and gave me a shiner. Looking back, I think maybe she had a crush on me...but I have been known to be narcissistic.

I put the bra away and I am not sure I ever wore it again. That was 1983.

In 1984 I had settled into a new-and-far-more-prissy parochial school close to my Grandpa's house.

In just that one year things started to happen...to other girls who were not me. Their boobs started growing. Their waists started narrowing. I still looked like a Skipper doll while my best friend literally had a Coke bottle body. (The Coke bottles of then, not now.) I had the Coke bottle body of today back then. Nothing. No shape, easily dented and not very tough.

In our school you were either Italian or Irish. I was both...and a bit too Irish in the boob department.

To make matters worse, my family wanted me to stay away from my best friend because she "looked" like trouble. Tits on an 11 year old? You bet.

It did not help that everyone knew she pretended to be 16 when she met boys at the mall. In retrospect, that was pretty unsafe, but try telling that to some 11 year old bad-ass Catholic girls with pin-up girl bodies...Sure. Give it a whirl.

Then there was me. The mascot. The "little sister" if you will. That's what they told their new boyfriends as way of explaining my lack of breasts. It was either that or I couldn't hang, as my titlessness would blow their cover.

Needless to say, when it came time for Summer camp, no way in hell was I being sent to the same camp as Maria Gallo. They were not having it. Too bad. We would live. They promised.

I cried.

I think I threw a tantrum but it's all a blank.

*blinks angelically*

Sooooo, away I go to an alternate, Maria-less Summer camp. BOOOOO!

One day we have a field trip to the beach. Oh JEEEEEZUS!

Me. Age 11. Flat chested. In front of boys and other "seasoned" Italian girls in a swim suit.

I thought in my head to my very juvenile one piece, tube top swim suit and broke into a panic.

The night before, I scoured my aunt's dresser looking to find one of her 2 piece swim suits and planned on sneaking that on. No luck. Where the hell did she keep them?!?!? Dammit!

Most days at camp I was dressed like a Madonna/Bananarama hybrid with lots of layers to camouflage my lack of breasts. What the hell would Madonna do?!?!?

The Material Biotch would improvise. If I don't have boobs, for the love of Luck Star I would MAKE boobs!

I set to thinking of what I could stuff in that suit that wouldn't get ruined in the water but would also look real...

Clearly this was no job for Kleenex.

I pulled open drawers like a crazy woman.

I opened my desk drawer and saw a bag of balloons.

*hears the faint sound of angels, harps and choirs in the background of young and stupid mind*

I must have tried on 5 different sets of alternately sized balloon boobies.

*Thinks of clinically insane mother at time of incident and makes the bloodline connection*

Do you have any idea how difficult it is for an 11 year old girl to measure the exact amount of water to make her own perfect water balloon breasts while rushing to not get caught and shaking with the excitement that the next day she will have BREASTS?!!??!

Do you?!?!?

*wipes hair from brow*

They were small balloons. Not very filled. They were not stretched much, so not likely to break. The only thing that made them not so much perfect was the fact that...

well...

...they were not boobs...

...and one was bright blue and the other was yellow. My bathing suit was vertical stripes of white and Heather gray.

*pauses to allow reader to get a visual in mind of colors/contrast and fully appreciate the stress of knowing as I type this what is about to happen and did in fact happen*

I wore the balloons. I had no knowledge of lighting or the effects of water on the degree of translucence on a swim suit. Again, I was 11. Science was not my bag.

I played in the water with my friends and older (13 year old) boys I hoped to impress with my womanliness.

*Thinks in head in amazement at having confidence while wearing brightly colored water balloons as breasts and having no pubes to speak of*

(Hey, I had no idea that would one day be hot!)

Well, whatever happened, someone...a girl saw the blue and yellow in my suit, but was unclear as to what the hell it was.

*Who thinks people would stuff their bathing suit with water balloons?!?!?*

Instead of just asking me, she gets a group and approaches me in the water. Her group contains cute 13 year old boys. I wanted to punch her, but we all know I am a bit of a wuss in that department...at least back then.

Eh-hem...

She was direct. She asked me. I gave her the "WhatEVER eyeroll/smirk combo" but to no love. They tormented me all day. I think I may have made a snarky comment about how they were just trying to get me to show them my boobs and tried to sound convincing to the non-believers.

In the end, I just got out of the ocean and lay on my beach towel with my sunglasses on, pretending to ignore them and trying to look cool.

I'm pretty sure I failed....I mean, I had blue and yellow latex tits!

The next day I went back to camp in my normal East Village Wannabe attire and acted like nothing happened. I could see some trying to get a look at my chest, but I was thankful for layers.

Later when the topic was brought up I would giggle with the asker/commenter and joke that "everyone knows I have the tiniest titties" and "I'm sure it was just my bathing suit squeezing my skin and making my boobs look big" and how "I am never wearing that swim suit again."

...and how could I really? I was out of blue and yellow balloons.

The Balance That Isn't

"What did you want to be when you grew up when you were 5," he asked.

I responded with:

"When I was 5, I wanted to be a ballerina and an attorney.

When I was 10, I wanted to be a cartoonist and an attorney.

When I was 13, I wanted to be a fashion designer and an attorney...and a nun.

When I was 16, I wanted to be a U.S. Senator and an attorney.

When I was 20, I wanted to be an attorney.

When I was 28, I wanted to be a writer and an attorney.

When I was 32, I wanted to be an attorney.

When I was 34, I wanted to be a cyclist and attorney.

At 35, I want to win the lottery so that I can ride my bike, paint pictures, save the world and write about it all."

I didn't offer up an explanation. I felt that I had already over-answered.

Between 5 and 10, life had changed enough that I wanted to make it funny and color it to be things it was not. I was no longer secure in simply losing myself to the dance...

Between 10 and 13, my friends hit puberty (and I did not) and Madonna hit the scene and I wanted to design clothes that either made my breasts look existent or hide the fact they weren't. Let me say that this came after the very tragic Water-Balloon-Bra-Stuffing Incident of 1984.

eh-hem...

Connie may also remember a hideous skirt I made in our clothing textile class and understand why I did not pursue fashion design...

When I was 16 I was the vice president of our chapter of The Future Republicans of America. Then Bush 41 ran for President. Do I really need to say more about this?

Between 16 and 20, I learned about survival. About the law. About human nature and the power of greed. About losing. About bleeding, and breaking, and life...loss and creation. Aside from Kindergarten, I learned the most during this cute little era....

Between 20 and 28, I hardened and softened. I cut throats and ripped jugulars in the corporate world. I clawed, kicked and trampled the meek. I had a phat convertible and badass company car. My son thought I was God. He knew I was Santa. My karma bitchslap was an eye-opening, soul shattering, mind blowing diagnosis of cancer. I learned that there are people who enjoy watching other people be sick. I learned that there are people who will ask out of curiosity more than caring. I learned that regardless of chemo, radiation, loss of self-esteem and/or hair, numbers are numbers in certain companies and if you are too weak to fly to Dallas to take a client to dinner and a titty bar, you may get your ass reamed.

Between 28 and 32, I felt invincible and got married and then left. Nothing was funny anymore. I wanted nothing recorded. The writing, the painting, the dancing...all stopped. I forfeited my identity to another because it was easier than fighting for myself day in and day out with someone who did not care who I was and only desired a trophy to show to his friends. My employer was wildly excited about the time I was willing to dedicate to my job rather than deal with the impending doom of my marriage. I sold out....for a minute or two.

Between 32 and 34 I rediscovered who I was and what I love. It involved my kiddos, my bicycles, all dogs, gear, and shoes. It did not involve my former spouse, so that was the end of that.

Between 34 and 35 I took time off to get healthy and regroup. It became easier to not play the game. I stopped caring what people think and started caring more about how people feel. I stopped giving a crap as to whether my view was the popular one. I stopped caring that my nipples are crooked and my car is a greedy gas guzzling whore. I let go of people who hung on and people who drained me. I got the reputation of being sweet and awful, kind and cruel, altruistic and cold, fun and boring, wild and a prude.

If that's not balance, I don't know what is.

The Rabbit and the Kitty

It goes without saying that my kitty loves my rabbit...

That being said, since moving from the Fantabulous Townhouse to the single level Cantankerous Condo, my rabbit has gone mostly unloved and neglected.

My new bedroom is next to the bedroom of my not-entirely-headless teenager, soooooo there's that.

You may recall that recently I discovered the delicious delight of that fantastic mint chocolate chip magical cream...

Ummmm....yeah.

Last night I decided after a glass of wine and a really awful day that maybe my rabbit would like to share the cream too and that my kitty would certainly be pleased with such a treat.

The teenager was busy drawing and had his iPod blasting in his ears...

Hmmmm....

I went to the "special" drawer where my pretty little rabbit has laid sleeping since the Spring of 2007 (Holy crap!)...

I took her gently in my hands and looked lovingly at her like a childhood toy found years after not realizing you even missed it. (...and how sad is that....REALLY!?!?)

Just as I was imagining the fun we were about to have, a moth flew out of the drawer...

YIKES!

The moment was gone but the symbolism remained...

I sighed and thought about how I have neglected my rabbit and kitty and made a resolution in the name of Lent *snicker* that I would pay them both more attention...

...Ummmm when I get my NEW rabbit, as much like an old husband, once the image has been tainted one cannot go back or receive pleasure from that source any longer. *double snicker*