Big Apple Bras

So, I already told you about the James Beard party that Brad Pitt and I attended on Sunday night. What I didn’t tell you was that I forgot my bra.

We arrived in the Big Apple late in the day – oh, probably around 6:30 or 7pm – but didn’t feel rushed because the party wasn’t scheduled to begin until 9:30pm. So we leisurely made our way to the hotel room, grabbed a snack to eat and then I finally decided I better take a shower so I could shave my legs. I was wearing a dress, you know. Not a second after my clothes hit the bathroom floor before it dawned on me: I forgot to pack a bra.

A real bra. (Don’t worry, I hadn’t been free-boobing it all day. I had on a sports bra.)

I ran out of the bathroom, naked, yelling I FORGOT MY BRA, I FORGOT MY BRA to Brad Pitt. Clueless, he suggested I just wear the sports bra but got on board quickly with my hysterics when he realized the straps would show. (Okay, he wasn’t hysterical, but he definitely understood this was a matter of critical importance. And the clock was ticking.)

As a good husband does, he took control of the situation and called down to the concierge. “Yes, hi, can you tell me where I might be able to buy a bra? Not for me. For my wife.” I could hear a voice blabbering on the other end of the line and when Brad Pitt hung up he handed me the names of the suggested stores.

I took off like a bat out of hell (after I put my clothes back on) and ran through Times Square in search of “a real bra.” This was one of the first establishments I passed and I was all “Oh! Those girls probably have bras!” Then I was like “No. No, they definitely don’t.”

I stopped in three or four clothing stores, none of which were on the list, none of which carried brassieres, but all of which looked at me like I was crazy with my frantic question of “Do you have bras!?!?!?”

I finally hit the block with Forever 21. You know the store: Up-to-date fashion with super cheap prices and half the collection is a bit hootchie momma, but for some reason parents don’t seem to mind their pre-teen daughters tramping around in vagina-showing-skirts and mid-riff tops. Okay. I’m exaggerating. A little bit.

Anyway, I tore through the store (it was by far the largest Forever 21 I’ve ever been in and I would have loved to look around more but I had that party to attend) and finally found the “lingerie section.”

Bras!

Bras!

Bras everywhere! Panties, too! And cute stuff!

Score! I was thrilled.

And then I saw the sizes. Yeah, so apparently when you stay 21 forever your chest is very, very small.
Every…Single…Bra…was size small. And size “small” at Forever 21 is like size quadruple extra small in the real world.

I dug through every rack looking for the largest sizes I could find to squeeze my cantaloupes inside.

Okay. Maybe not cantaloupes. I’m looking at them right now. How big is a cantaloupe? Bigger or smaller than a grapefruit? Maybe I needed grapefruit sized bras. Or mandarin oranges. I don’t know. But I do know that the mosquito-bite-bandages that were hanging on the racks were not going to cut it.

I asked a sales girl where I could find the large bras and she just shook her head, taking pity on me.

I finally found two that would work. Not great, but would work: They had skinny straps. And my ta-tas would not be flapping around at the party. So I bought both of them and then ran back to the hotel to get ready.

So, in the end, my sports bra did come in handy as I raced through Times Square. And I found a real bra so my cantaloupe-grapefruit-oranges didn’t have to go bra-less in the Big Apple.