Just like cockroaches, they would survive a nuclear attack

If you're not a Mom 101 fanatic like I am, make sure you check out her post from yesterday on trying to find a bra. God, when I read that, I was not only dying laughing but also thinking about the horrors of bra shopping with my mother. Here I am, many years later, and still emotionally scarred from the experience.

I think my first bra was purchased at the local department store. It was one of those little "My First Playtex" bras...remember those? How they came in a lovely purple box? I had been begging my mother for months to let me start wearing a bra, and in true Machiavellian Mother style she made me wait an excruciatingly long time. And when she finally took me to Leonard's on Main Street in Hackettstown, NJ, I discovered my first humiliation. The "teen bra" sales rack was conveniently located right next to the Boys Jeans section. Imagine the humiliation of the guy who sits next to you in Social Studies watching you pick your little purple box off the rack while he's lurking behind the Wranglers. Horror, I tell you.

Gradually, I managed to convince my mother that buying bras at the PX on base was much better. They had Maidenform! And they were pretty!

But that didn't last long. Soon, my mother caught wind of this bra place and ended up dragging my poor father and myself down to West Orange to go get A Serious Bra.

I wish I could remember the name of the place, but I swear to God the place must have been at least 80,000 square feet of nothing but the most industrial-grade undergarments available to man at that time. Not to mention that the place was staffed entirely by little old Jewish ladies who embodied every stereotype of the Jewish mother you can imagine.

So we walked into the store - and in the middle of the store were the "fitting rooms", basically nothing more than a bunch of curtained off partitions. I guess the little old ladies figured that no man in his right mind was going to enter this haven of underwire, so why bother with fancy things like actual doors with locks?

My mother explained to the saleslady that I was going to be wearing a spaghetti-strap dress to the prom and really needed a good, strapless bra to wear underneath it. I was herded into the fitting area and told to strip from the waist up so they could come and do my measurements. Oh yes, they insisted, you must have a proper fit in order for the bra to work.

The little lady came in with her cloth measuring tape thrown around her neck and a little pad to write the measurements on. One look at me, and she threw open the curtain and screeched into the silence of the store, "ESTELLE! You gotta come in here and see this!"

Estelle soon appeared and a crowd of little old ladies gathered around somewhat reminiscent of Lord of the Flies. "Now ladies, would ya look at these? Look how perky they are. Young lady, you don't need a bra under that prom dress, you'll be just fine without one!"

After scraping my mother off of the ceiling, I was fitted with a Supersonic Titty-Twister Strapless Deluxe Bra with matching chastity belt. Not to mention the fact that I also went home that day with the least cute bras ever to wear every day. No wonder I was a virgin until I was 18, I was too embarrassed for anyone to see these hideous bras - not to mention that they must have been made out of titanium because they freaking lasted FOREVER. And by then, we'd moved South where little debutantes don't wear bras that look like they could survive a nuclear attack.

The sad part? Since the girls aren't as perky as they used to be, I could sure use someone like The Bra Ladies to help a sistah out.