Buying a swimming suit - THIS IS A JOKE, meant to help you find some humor in one of life's great rewards, NOT.

[Guest guest]

I don't wish to bring the wrath of those seriously seeking approval and

support down around my ears but I thought this was cute. If I've offended

anyone by sending it please forgive me. I realize fully this is not a joke

list but I thought with the season and subject matter it was appropriate.

*****

I have just been through the annual pilgrimage of torture and humiliation

known as buying a swimming suit. When I was a child in the 1950's, the

swimming suit for a woman with a mature figure was designed for a woman with

a mature figure - boned, trussed, and reinforced - not so much sewn as

engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift and they did a good

job.

Today's stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a figure

chipped from marble. The mature woman has a choice - she can either front up

at the maternity department and try on a floral costume with a skirt, coming

away looking like a hippopotamus who escaped from Disney's Fantasia or she

can wander around every run-of-the-mill department store trying to make a

sensible choice from what

amounts to a designer range of fluorescent rubber bands.

What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice and

entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room.

The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the

stretch material. The Lycra used in swimming suits was developed, I believe,

by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, which give the

added bonus that if you manage to actually ever get yourself into one, you

are protected from shark attacks.

The reason for this is that any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff

would immediately suffer whiplash. I fought my way into the swimming suit,

but as I twanged the shoulder strap in place, I gasped in

horror - my bosom had disappeared!

Eventually, I found one bosom cowering under my left armpit. It took a while

to find the other. At last. I located it flattened beside my seventh rib.

The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups.

The mature woman is meant to wear her bosom spread across her chest like a

speed bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take

a full view assessment.

The swimming suit fit all right, but unfortunately, it only fit those bits

of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from

top, bottom, and sides. I looked like a lump of playdough wearing

undersized cling wrap. As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had

come from, the prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtains.

Oh, there you are, " she said, admiring the bathing suit.

I replied that I wasn't so sure and asked what else she had to show me. I

tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of masking tape,

and a floral two piece which gave the appearance of an oversized napkin in a

napkin ring. I struggled into a pair of leopard-skin bathers with ragged

frill and came out looking like Tarzan's Jane -- pregnant with triplets and

having a rough day. I tried on a black number with a midriff and looked

like a jellyfish in mourning. I tried on a bright pink one with such

high-cut legs I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear it.

Finally, I found a costume that fit...a two-piece affair with shorts-style

bottom and a halter-top. It was cheap, comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so

I bought it. When I got home, I read the label, which said, " Material may

become transparent in water. "

I'm determined to wear it anyway...I'll just have to learn to do

the breaststroke in the sand.