Oh, the Burden
Unlike many romantically-inclined folks, I am not under the misconception that songs and movies and books are the real world. The real world is not Brad Pitt giving you flowers and sending you Japanese love poems. At no point in the land of reality does being “twenty pounds overweight” translate into the body of Renee Zellweger. Hell, I’d give my right arm to be dumped by the likes of Rhett Butler, but it just doesn’t happen that way.
No, the real world is bird crap on my windshield, running out of toilet paper, and spewing coke out my nose. It’s trying on bras at Victoria’s Secret, looking like I’m trying to shove two giant water balloons into a rubber band. It’s knowing that by the time I’m forty, these nice, if lopsided, breasts will hang somewhere in the vicinity of my kneecaps. I’ll have to get larger belts just to calm the swaying.
The real world is finally getting that fabulous guy to ask me out, and he takes me to a porn shop, winks lasciviously at me, and asks, “See anything you like?” It’s going out with my sexy new neighbor, who has the incredibly brilliant idea to take me to a Mexican restaurant. In return, I have the equally moronic idea to order a burrito. Of course, I have to act like I’m not completely mortified when a diaper-filling of beans escapes the tortilla and is rescued from a fatal fall by my shelf of a chest. Let me tell you how erotic it is not to stammer through the remainder of the date smelling like beans and sporting burrito poop on my cleavage.
In the movies, if Drew Barrymore did this, it would be cute and the characters would tell their children about how they fell in love because of burrito poop. In real life, I lie awake in bed for two weeks straight analyzing why he never checked out my boobs throughout the rest of the evening, or the next time we meet in the hall. Did the beans turn him off, or am I really just grotesquely huge? Maybe he doesn’t like my breasts. Should I have a reduction? Would he call me if I got one? What if I got one, and then he didn’t call me?
So then I’d have no boobs and no man. At least if I have my boobs I still have something to play with. I think I’ll just keep them. After all, I’m fully certain that the way to a man’s heart is through my chest. The last boyfriend I had, his boss began each day of work by opening a discussion on how my breasts were doing that day. “Not sore, are they? No? Good, good. Got to take care of those, you know. Fragile commodity, they are.”
I’m glad someone places value in them. For the most part, I’m just ridiculously afraid that by the time I’m thirty my nipples will be somewhere in the region of my kneecaps. I’ll have to buy larger belts just to accommodate them.
But whenever I make mention of whacking them off, my friends get insanely defensive. Girls whine about how they wish they had tits that were that big. Fine, I’ll donate them to the less fortunate. Guys, of course, are just appalled at the thought that it would be one less pair of porn-sized jugs in the world. Come on, it’s not like I’m excising their body parts. I’ll keep ‘em in a box, if you want, and then you can play with them anytime the fancy strikes you. Deal?
Just once, I’d like to put on a button down shirt and not have it gap open at the chest. Gaposis, a breast related disease. They only make clothes for women built like Jennifer Aniston. I try on a pair of jeans and instead of tucking my shirt in I have to tuck my butt and love handles in. Victoria’s big secret is that she was flat. An ironing board that woman was. Just watch one of us “full-figured” women in the dressing room sometime if you get a chance. It’s like putting a bike tire patch on the Titanic. And forget bikinis. They may come in all sizes, but apparently all sizes means B-cup only. If I blink my left eye my right boob leaps free.
Which brings up another breast phenomenon: the unequal set. I wonder sometimes if my right boob is jealous of the larger size of my left. On the other hand, does the left envy the right’s roundness, its more globe-like shape? I think when I’m a big well-loved star like Kathy Lee and I have my own line of bras in Wal-Mart, I’m going to manufacture underwear that takes these factors into consideration. “You say your left tit is a D-cup and your right is a B? No problem, our lopsided line is right over here. What, none of our sports bras are large enough? Here you go, here’s a roll of duct tape and some lotion.”
On the up side, I can get my mechanic to do whatever I want. To my car, I mean. Restaurant managers are always very nice. No speeding tickets. I generally have to pick up my own pens, though. Okay, so men are easy. At least I’m remembered, and if I have to go down in the books for something, it might as well be a feature that some people consider attractive. I met up with an ex-boyfriend a few weeks ago, and he didn’t remember my face, but he remembered my boobs. He didn’t remember the burrito poop, but he remembered the bearers.