It's A Swimsuit Not A Produce Carrier
I’m starting to rethink the pool pass I bought at the beginning of the summer. I haven’t had many opportunities to go, but this weekend I took the girls and our one adopted daughter (Mo’s bestest friend) to the pool to keep cool off after a very hot day. By the end of our time there I had a headache, my neck was sore and I had experienced more than my fair share of embarrassment. If I try to reflect on it honestly, I would have to admit the embarrassment was probably more in my own head, but at the time I was sure several, if not all, the people poolside were sharing a joke at my expense.
Some background for those of you who have not met me, or do not know me well – I have a large chest. Not to say my breasts are the largest anyone has ever seen. I saw that one women on E! who had plastic surgery to ensure she had something like a ZZZ cup size. Mine aren’t that big. I would like to say proportionally they are very large, but the truth is, they are just large. There is no way to hide it. I think I may have tried to wrap them with an ace bandage once in high school to fit into something better, but that is just too much work for every day.
Back to how my large chest has anything to do with the pool. Let’s start with the headache and sore neck. My swimsuit has a halter top. Whoever designed halter top swimwear for large busted women should have to wear one with the cups stuffed with grapefruit or honeydews for an hour or two. Holding up that much breast is a lot of work and puts a lot of strain on your neck. Part of that has to do with having the straps tied as tight as possible to avoid any wardrobe malfunctions. So my neck was getting sore, leading to a bit of a headache before any of the fun began.
We get to the pool and it doesn’t take long for my chest to weigh me down. The natural answer is to get in the water, where their buoyancy will take some of strain off my neck. After doing some laps and watching the girls do underwater somersaults, my oldest daughter asks me to go down the water slides with her. I said yes against my better judgment.
There are two slides at our public pool – one that requires a tube (single or double) and one that is a body slide. We went down the body slide first. I wear glasses and take prescription sunglasses to the pool so I can see things like small children, my children and cute lifeguards. It was inevitable I would lose these going down the slide, so I took them off and held them in my hand while I stood in line. I did not see my daughter ahead of me use her hands to swing herself down into the jetted water to get her speed up. I simply sat down and pushed on either side of the tube. This worked fine for the first straight away and one bend, then disaster struck. Halfway down the slide I started to slow down. A lot. I will pause here to allow you to visualize. At one point, I was scooting on my butt until I figured out if I lay all the way down with straight legs (toes pointed) I would make my way to the bottom a bit faster. The trip was painfully slow. The kid at the top waiting for the slide to clear was probably whining at this point. When I got to the pool I merely slipped in, landing on my feet, while everyone else kind of jets out of the thing.
Slide #2: By this time I was slide shy. I have gone down the tubing slide before with little incident. It can be a lot of fun. The kids like me to sit in back because my weight propels us at a very fast speed and makes for an interesting landing. This time the landing was unique. The two-person tubes look like figure eights with a set of handles on either side of the hole for the front and back rider. As mentioned, I sit in the back. I put my butt in the hole, legs on top of either side and held on. When we splashed into the pool below, water rushed all around us, and my butt would not come out of the hole. I panicked a bit and, in the process of trying to extricate myself, I kicked Maggie in the head. She would not stop reminding me of it all evening long.
After the disaster on the slides, I decided it was best to sit and read my book under a big umbrella far away from other people. It was an unforgettable adventure. I’m not sure how much more use my pool pass or my bathing suit will get this season.
Some background for those of you who have not met me, or do not know me well – I have a large chest. Not to say my breasts are the largest anyone has ever seen. I saw that one women on E! who had plastic surgery to ensure she had something like a ZZZ cup size. Mine aren’t that big. I would like to say proportionally they are very large, but the truth is, they are just large. There is no way to hide it. I think I may have tried to wrap them with an ace bandage once in high school to fit into something better, but that is just too much work for every day.
Back to how my large chest has anything to do with the pool. Let’s start with the headache and sore neck. My swimsuit has a halter top. Whoever designed halter top swimwear for large busted women should have to wear one with the cups stuffed with grapefruit or honeydews for an hour or two. Holding up that much breast is a lot of work and puts a lot of strain on your neck. Part of that has to do with having the straps tied as tight as possible to avoid any wardrobe malfunctions. So my neck was getting sore, leading to a bit of a headache before any of the fun began.
We get to the pool and it doesn’t take long for my chest to weigh me down. The natural answer is to get in the water, where their buoyancy will take some of strain off my neck. After doing some laps and watching the girls do underwater somersaults, my oldest daughter asks me to go down the water slides with her. I said yes against my better judgment.
There are two slides at our public pool – one that requires a tube (single or double) and one that is a body slide. We went down the body slide first. I wear glasses and take prescription sunglasses to the pool so I can see things like small children, my children and cute lifeguards. It was inevitable I would lose these going down the slide, so I took them off and held them in my hand while I stood in line. I did not see my daughter ahead of me use her hands to swing herself down into the jetted water to get her speed up. I simply sat down and pushed on either side of the tube. This worked fine for the first straight away and one bend, then disaster struck. Halfway down the slide I started to slow down. A lot. I will pause here to allow you to visualize. At one point, I was scooting on my butt until I figured out if I lay all the way down with straight legs (toes pointed) I would make my way to the bottom a bit faster. The trip was painfully slow. The kid at the top waiting for the slide to clear was probably whining at this point. When I got to the pool I merely slipped in, landing on my feet, while everyone else kind of jets out of the thing.
Slide #2: By this time I was slide shy. I have gone down the tubing slide before with little incident. It can be a lot of fun. The kids like me to sit in back because my weight propels us at a very fast speed and makes for an interesting landing. This time the landing was unique. The two-person tubes look like figure eights with a set of handles on either side of the hole for the front and back rider. As mentioned, I sit in the back. I put my butt in the hole, legs on top of either side and held on. When we splashed into the pool below, water rushed all around us, and my butt would not come out of the hole. I panicked a bit and, in the process of trying to extricate myself, I kicked Maggie in the head. She would not stop reminding me of it all evening long.
After the disaster on the slides, I decided it was best to sit and read my book under a big umbrella far away from other people. It was an unforgettable adventure. I’m not sure how much more use my pool pass or my bathing suit will get this season.