Foundation Dimensions

A warning: this is a post for/about the 'girls.' It is not about basements of any particular size.

Gentlemen readers (yes I know there are a couple of you out there): if you would like to maintain blissful ignorance regarding the garments worn closest to your beloved women's chests, please stop reading now. Go have yourself a beer or some other drink you enjoy and check back in a few days when this will no longer be the post at the top of the page.
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After seeing I don't know how many makeover shows that insist that a proper-fitting bra is key to looking good, regardless of your size or shape and listening to a few friends wax poetic about a proper fitting, I finally decided to suck it up and let a professional take a tape measure to me.

I've spent a lot of money (for me anyway) on pants in the last month or so. I shed a surprising amount of weight since joining a company where one of the perks is a free athletic club membership, there being a club across the parking lot from the office, and avoiding the morning rush hour by getting to the edge of the prairie at the crack of dawn. So, I'm aware that I dropped a couple sizes in pants. My bras have never fit well and I figured if my hips have changed, maybe the chest has, too. And even if not, what I own isn't working for me.

I have always considered myself to have a pretty small chest (cup-size, anyway; I figured my ribcage to be pretty average). I'm perfectly happy with that, it just is. The only time I've taken measures to modify what I've got was using gel inserts to arrange the 'girls' to fill my wedding dress better.
Ok I said "dimensions" up there, let's talk numbers. I've been sporting a 36B and thinking I really needed an A/B....

So, I wander around the racks at Nordstrom this afternoon, hoping some kind soul would ask if I needed help. No such luck. So, I took a deep breath and walked up to the counter (wondering all the while why the hell this was so difficult). Asked if I needed help, I blurted out, "Yes. A friend told me this is the place to come to get measured." Instead of treating me like I was the 12 years old I felt at that moment, the clerk smiled warmly and whisked me toward the fitting rooms. She had me slip off my t-shirts and wrapped the tape measure around my ribs. I barely heard her say, "32.... I'll be back in a minute to check the cup with a bra," before she was back out the door. 32? Well, that's not the direction I thought we'd go, but with the hips shrinking, ok maybe...

She returned with four styles in 32D. D????? Is she out of her mind? Two sizes smaller around and at least two bigger, um, you know... I thought she'd be marching right back out to the floor to try again. But, this is why I went to a professional. The 32D's? They actually fit! Some styles better than others, but they fit. There was one that she suggested, if I really liked it, I try in a 34C instead, but I didn't like it that much.

So, I selected four, shrugged back into one of the bras I'll be throwing away tonight, and dropped almost an Eileen Fisher coat's worth of money on something almost no one will ever see. It's kind of too bad I have to wear shirts in public.