Nip it Good!

I'm not a dusky sun-kissed goddess. Basically, I only tan on the tops of my feet and the backs of my hands. Otherwise, I burn and sprout more freckles. If I were to let this continue, maybe the freckles would all join together and I'd end up with a rich, freckle-tinted tan before keeling over from skin cancer. So that's not a good idea.

My good idea was to buy a long-sleeved swim shirt. And that was fine. BUT. But, swim shirts for women (from here on referred to as "SS's"), like their male counterparts, do not have any extra coverage, if you get where I'm going. No? Nip, nip, nippity nip. Got me? There is no extra shelf-bra in which to stow the baggage. You hit the cold water and TA-DA!

Now some might proudly display their peaks of femininity and there's nothing wrong with that. Some might find this freeing or sexy and some might just not care. I am not one of them. Most of my life has been about blending in. When everyone dressed like a preppy, so did I. After that I just tried not to look too disheveled for work, with varying degrees of success. My forays in sexy fashion have been few and embarrassing. Oh, there was that stretch velvet period, but mostly, I've been pretty plain.

True, I have gone braless. For a long time, I wore loose shirts so that I didn't have to feel like I was wearing a tourniquet for a superficial chest wound. I hate bras. But I digress. What is really important about all of this is that I bought a snug fitting SS to help keep me from burning to a crisp, yet I was ding dong damned If I was going to put on a tantalizing show, or more possibly be crushed by the fact that MY milkshake scares all the boys at the pool. I feel I'm on this earth to not traumatize anyone, myself included.

Enter my new bikini top. Okay, so I have a special hatred for the recent trend of selling bathing suits in pieces and charging nearly as much for each piece as one would pay for a one-piece. Thieves. Yet I willing paid for the two parts of my tankini (tank top and shorts bathing suit) as soon as I discovered it. Sure, I could pull off a one-piece, but it would be like Sweeny Todd over here every time I had to do a little edging. Much safer, the tankini.

Anyway, so I had to solve the nip problem of the swim shirt, and for the first time, I was glad that I could choose to buy just on half of a bathing suit. I bought a teeny bikini top for a low-low price at a local Mart. It was the only one available that did not have dangling beads hanging between the cups or a big ol' metal buckle holding the two sides together (Priscilla, thou are shameless!), thus enabling the top to look smooth under said tight SS. My new bikini top is a real throwback to the seventies. In fact, I would have sold my mother to the Ayatollah to possess such awesomeness. Each side has a wing of a pink, metallic butterfly, plus aqua and black accents. Be still my aging teen-aged heart! Of course, under the SS, no one will ever see it, but that's okay because I couldn't find a top one that wasn't PADDED. Now when I saunter out to the pool, I look like I possess an enormous rack. I make shade, people. Of course, I am still a pool Mom and everyone still calls me "ma'am" but, while others barely see that woman who has almost blended into her surroundings like a gecko, I know that I've gone from a McFlurry to a Triple-thick Shake. And I'm the only one who needs to know.

P.S. the long-sleeved SS is very, very comfortable and actually keeps me cool out of the water after a dip!