My Best Tip for Looking Twenty Years Younger

Tighten your bra straps.

I’m serious here. The other day, I was dressing up to attend a baby shower for my friend Allison's daughter. I don’t usually dress up. In fact, I normally get ready for work in the dark, a routine that just recently caused me to wear my shirt inside out until mid-morning when one of my second graders noticed.

So there I was in broad daylight, looking at myself in the mirror over the sink in my bathroom and wondering where my boobs had gone. All I could see was my bony chest. When I looked down, I noticed two extra bumps down around what used to be my waist. There they were.

I looked back in the mirror and pulled on my bra straps, which caused my breasts to rise up to where they are supposed to be (or at least in the ball park). I then checked my bra and remembered that the straps are adjustable, so, by finagling the the plastic doohickeys, Bingo, my boobs and my self esteem were suddenly elevated to a healthier level.

On to the baby shower where I was boring people with my story about fighting the good fight against the pull of gravity. Two of my gay friends quickly became involved since, to my knowledge, gay men like to talk about female anatomy even more than straight men (but in a very different way). Their advice was to go to one of those expensive foundation shops and buy a bra that really fits. I told them that type of thing wasn’t going to happen as my current bra I’d purchased from Target four years ago was just now getting comfortable. They both did that annoying smirk they do when I say something so sensible they can’t possibly argue with it.

Further discussion at the shower – what baby? – centered around a joke someone told about a woman’s bust size going from 36 to 36 long, and then a remembrance of mine having to do with why mammograms aren’t particularly helpful for women under forty, based on young women's breasts being mostly muscle while the breasts of older women are mostly fat. That then led to silly examples of exercises for building boob muscles and someone taking a picture of Allison and me holding up our party-frocked breasts with our crone hands. In case you're wondering, yes, wine was on the menu at this particular baby shower.

I'm proud to say I have two bras, the (formerly) white one I’m wearing right now and a black one I keep in case something really exciting happens in my life. So far nothing has. I like my white bra, and even on weekends, when I'm not planning on going anywhere, I will put it on in late morning, after my bath, and then toss my pajamas right back on over it, being aware that putting on my bra signifies I'm ready for whatever the day may bring (including fire drills). My friend, Linda, hates her bra and has been known to take it off in the parking lot when she is leaving work. Allison, on the other hand, uses her bra as a cell phone caddy, although she often forgets it's in there and has to email people with the message: CALL ME I'VE LOST MY PHONE!

I remember my first starter bra and how excited I was to wear it, making sure, that day, to sport a thin white top so others could appreciate my budding comeliness under that "stretch as you grow" nylon. Of course my brother ruined it by saying he needed a bra more than I did. I'm not sure he should have been bragging about that.

I guess I've been wearing a bra for over 45 years now. Not the same bra, mind you. I do buy a new one from time to time when the old one finally gives in and lets go to the point that safety pins no longer do the trick.

And I wonder why there's no man in my life. But then again, maybe tightening the straps will do the trick.