Bandaids, Boobs and Barbies

         

         

          Back before gravity took hold of my body and my metabolism died a slow death; even before my eyes decided that anything smaller than billboard sized type could not be read by them, I was a skinny bean pole of a teenager.  Since at the time I made my living modeling equally skinny garments, this was a good thing.  Except in summer.

          In summer, when all my girlfriends were donning skimpy swimsuits and parading their tanned and toned bodies around the local beaches, I was wondering just how many tissues I could stuff into my bikini bra top so I didn’t look like a boy. 

          But, after age forty, with every passing year, a pound of blubber attached itself to my body completely without my permission or actual knowledge.  It was just the case that I slowly grew from a size ‘tiny’ to a size ‘really’?  This did not make me dance with joy but it did make me realize that with the slightly larger hips, I had also managed to acquire boobs that required more than a bandaid to cover them.  Now I could wear dresses confident that the top would be properly filled out and match the bottom half in perfect symmetry.

          All this was before the advent of what has become a multi-million dollar industry for cosmetic surgeons…the implanting of lumps of jello encased in some form of soft plastic material, into an otherwise perfectly fine female body.  These packets of yesterday’s uneaten dessert come in a myriad of sizes.  The small busted woman can choose which pair she desires from a collection in a glass enclosed case.  Something like picking out a chunk of meat from the butcher’s window for tonight’s dinner.

          Trust me I have no problem with women wanting to make themselves look and feel better.  I have a bathroom cabinet full of expensive makeup that proves the point as well as two closets full of clothes that have rarely seen the light of day.  My problem is the lack of common sense illustrated by the young things who want to improve their appearance by enhancing their natural bits and pieces.

          For instance, at the gym the other day, as I passed a line of elliptical machines, I counted seven twenty-somethings all jiggling away on the equipment who looked as though they’d been birthed by a cookie cutter or perhaps the same plastic surgeon.  Every one of them was proudly sporting a size 44D bust, a tiny waist and normal sized hips.  The fact they all had very similar hairstyles, made me wonder if they’d been cloned by the Barbie doll people.

          Even the guys, who are usually good for a drool or two when they see a good looking young lass in her skimpy exercise gear, seem to have become impervious to the boobs bounty around them these days.  Apparently, with so much to ogle, the game has become old hat and not worthy of their attention.

           Still, I shudder to think what these Barbie girls will tell their female offspring when the time comes.  Find the best plastic surgeon you can and make sure you look like every other woman on the planet?  What an awful prospect!