Down, FiFi
My flesh and my heart
may fail,
but God is the
strength of my heart
and my portion
forever.
-- Psalm 73:26
So there I was in the
dressing room at Dillard's in a death grip with a black strapless bra named
''FiFi.''
Let me explain.
Underwear is my nemesis.
I hate buying it. I hate being ''sized'' for it, and haven't been since I was
13. Consequently, I still wear underwear that I've had since I WAS 13.
Now the DNA is breaking
down in the elastic of these antique garments. The fabric is so worn, it's
cheesecloth.
These undies are all so
tattered, I'm close to doing the scandalous thing teenagers today are doing:
wearing no underwear at all. They call it ''GOING COMMANDO.'' Well, huh. Mine
already looks like it's been through a war.
The bras are missing
hooks. They have stretched-out straps. My husband forever destroyed the
graceful mystique of breastfeeding by calling the flaps of my maternity bras
''bomb bay doors.''
The centerpiece of all this is a nuclear-strength panty
girdle at least 20 years old, purchased, I believe, at a Strategic Air Command
garage sale. This lethal weapon is so tight that, when I'm wearing it, I have
to be hoisted by crane into a chair. If I'm standing up, I can only balance by
leaning on a wall, and when I'm ready to move I stick my arm out for someone to
pull me upright. When I pull on this powerful girdle, the underground command
center near Omaha goes DEFCOM 4 because of the release of radioactive fusion
molecules into the atmosphere.
Fortunately, my
daughters are not so lingerie loony. They actually like buying it and having a
lot in their undie inventory. When I take them shopping, though, the bras on
display remind me of hundreds of poodle noses pointing north, east, south and
west. I get the willies. Once, a bra displayed down low scraped my shin. I
turned, glared, and commanded, "Down, FiFi."
Ever since, we've called
bras "FiFi's." It's a girl thing.
So, anyway, we got
invited to a sweet, swank soiree. I'd known for months that I would need a
black strapless bra for my gown, but of course, had put off buying one.
So
the day of the ball I raced to the mall, grabbed a bra I thought was about my
size off the rack, and snuck into a dressing room. It was quickly apparent that
the bra I had selected was my size, all right . . . four pregnancies and a few
million Godivas ago.
But I was in a hurry. So
I tried to make it work.
Beads of sweat dotted my
brow. I bent over backwards, grimacing as if doing the limbo from hell. Both
hands fumbled to connect hooks and eyes I couldn't see, that stubbornly
remained two inches apart. My hands were greasy from a recent application of
lotion, and my glasses were slipping down off my nose, when suddenly. . .
ZZZZZING!
. . . the bra shot out
of my hands like twin cannonballs and smacked into the dressing room mirror. I
heard a shocked gasp from next door.
I couldn't just do
nothing.
So I said what came to
mind:
''DOWN, FiFi!''
There was an eerie
silence. I think she bought it. I hope she hasn't needed a prescription since.
Well, I was so
embarrassed, I just grabbed a bigger size, paid for it, and high-tailed it out
of there.
That night, I flossed
with excellence and yanked my chin hair, but couldn't find my nuclear-strength
panty girdle. I simply bragged that I had had waist augmentation surgery.
My beauty routine
included bag balm -- that's right, what farmers put on pig udders -- to try to
tame my left eyebrow, which was trying to ''Go Andy Rooney.'' At least that was
better than ''Going Commando.''
But I never should have
worried. Neely was the prettiest debutante, nobody even looked at the mothers
anyway, my FiFi was the right size, and best of all, nobody knew what I went
through just to get decent underwear for such a swank event.
'Til now.
But let's keep these
unmentionables unmentionable, shall we?
Or else I might have to sick FiFi on you. †
