Oh Brother ~ Part 2

Unfortunately, when I attempted to stuff my veritable skin into my virtual suit, I was sorely disappointed. Not only was I not a hot mamma, I wasn't even warm. On the virtual me, certain appendages intended to nourish babies had provided a pleasingly perky presentation. On the real me, said appendages seemed to have vanished. Upon further inspection, I found them cowering under my armpits. The spectacle was even scarier in the lower regions, but I will spare you the details.

My high-tech suit solution having shriveled, I was forced to drag myself down to the department store and enter the psyche-smashing chamber of horrors known as the dressing room. Why do retailers insist on equipping their fitting rooms with 200-watt fluorescent lighting and three-way fun house mirrors? Don't they realize if we could view our bodies, crammed as they are into shrink-wrapped rubber not much wider than dental floss, via candlelight through frosted mirrors (and perhaps after a couple of martinis), we'd likely take out a second mortgage to buy every suit in stock?

Determined to bravely face the task at hand, I began my pilgrimage against pudginess by arming myself with an assortment of the latest in swimwear styles and colors: the tankini, which gives you the illusion of a two-piece but with the promise of greater coverage (a bikini with benefits, so to speak); the maillot, a one-piece that, just by virtue of having a French name, is bound to bestow a certain sexy je-ne-sais-quoi; skirted bathing suits supposedly capable of camouflaging cellulite and sarong swim attire meant to minimize the midsection. For a couple of hours, I stood in front of those blasted mirrors under those blinding lights and tried on suit after suit.

Sadly, none of them met even my humble expectations. The tankini tanked as my flesh oozed out of its assigned areas. The maillot, despite its French connections, was a definite no. I squeezed into suits both black (which conveniently matched my mood) and colored, checked suits and some with polka-dots. Nothing made me happy. I struggled into a skirted floral number that made me look frighteningly like Hyacinth the Hippo. I wrapped myself in a striped sarong that was definitely not right.

In the end, I left empty-handed, dubbing my quest a dismal failure. Now, I'm considering spending my mini vaca in a burlap sack. First though, I'm going to pay another visit to that vixenish virtual me. Maybe I'll feed her some Haagen-Dazs.