Comedy And Funny Stories About Trying On Lingerie: How To Put On A Bustier

This is my funny story about trying on lingerie - a bustier to be specific - and getting stuck. I had all the best intentions.

I wanted to be slimmer and look better in my dress for my daughter's wedding. However, I did not know that trying on lingerie could be hazardous to your health!

First off - I never even HEARD of a bustier before we were planning my daughter's wedding much less ever had one on. I am here to tell you, like so many things that I seem to get myself into, this was again one of the craziest events of my life!

I am by nature a very modest person, so I didn't really want any of my girlfriends along for help as they watched me cram my body into a super tight piece of Spandex. I figured I'd save that little sight for myself in the mirrors at Macy's. And maybe Bob just before it came off after the wedding and I let everything free!

I enlisted Bob to go with me down to the shopping mall because we had some other shopping to do. As happens many times though, he reached his limit and he left me to my own devices. He found the nearest chair hoping that I could go in and try on the garments and be out in record time. Ha!

WHEN SPANDEX HAS A MIND OF ITS OWN

It seemed simple enough and actually I was thinking it might be a great purchase after all – if it could shove things up where they looked bigger and firmer, more attractive while mashing all the uneven bulges everywhere else together and making me look slimmer in the process....hey....who could argue with such a contraption! What an invention! I might even come to enjoy the thing if it could make me a skinnier more voluptuous 'me'.

Decisions, decisions though – there were just too many choices! Why is this? I do not understand why everything I go to purchase has to be so mind-boggling. True to form though, when faced with too many choices, I start to feel pressured to try as many as possible 'just in case'. When I took off for the dressing room with my arms loaded with all kinds of body shapers and bustiers, I saw Bob shaking his head and wondering to himself I'm sure WHY he had let me talk him into going to enjoy his least favorite sport in the world again – shopping!

When I got into the dressing room, I felt good – I had myself some options and I was not going to be daunted. I was going to apply myself literally to the task at hand and come out of that dressing room with a surefire ticket to make me look younger and slimmer in my mother-of-the-bride dress. So as the minutes ticked by, I tried this bustier on and that bustier on. For some odd reason, the saleslady was either busy or on a break, because I literally never saw a SOUL or heard from anyone. The store was also so empty for a weeknight I was wondering if everyone had gone home! But then again, I didn't need or want an audience now did I? I could handle this little project on my own….. Little did I know.

I had narrowed down the bustiers to a few good choices and I had to admit, they did do their job, albeit very TIGHTLY. I was kind of wondering to myself if I was going to be able to eat a morsel of food or drink a sip of anything while strapped into one of these babies let alone SIT or stand once I had flopped into a chair. But...when I thought of the expense of the photographer and how much better I would look in those pictures, it didn't seem to matter. What is a little squeezing here and there and a pain or two? So what if I couldn't take a deep breath? It was all worth it to look 'better' and slimmer, right?

The very last thing I had to try on was a body shaper that I had selected. It was hanging on the hanger looking back at me. I was not really sure why I had selected it as it was more like a TUBE than a bustier. There were no fasteners, no laces, and it really did not look that sexy at all! Of course, it was cheaper….. Now my curiosity is piqued and I simply HAVE to try it on to see if saving money is going to win out over the other ones. I'm thinking Bob, ever the accountant, would be proud if I examined every avenue and maybe saved a few bucks in the process. It honestly didn't look like much of anything though but a very, very thick and long giant tube of Spandex – and how exactly was I supposed to get into it?

Well, to me the logical way was to put it on over my head, so I took off my glasses and set them on the shelf. I proceeded to wriggle my way into the most unforgiving piece of Spandex I have had the pleasure to meet before or after! I kind of was thinking I might be in trouble as it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to maneuver let alone breathe and my arms were in danger of being pinned inside this stupid thing. There definitely was a lot of squeezing going on! Whoever invented Spandex certainly knew what they were doing I guess.

Good GRIEF – I finally had it in place and I was definitely snugged into it – my bumps and lumps were definitely not going anywhere. However, the down side of all of this was that I was having the air sucked out of me – or squeezed out of me – one or the other. I was now encased in this tube from my boobs down to below my waist and it began to dawn on me that my oxygen stores were being depleted at an alarming rate. I was being squeezed to within an inch of my life is what it felt like! I proceeded to tell myself 'don't panic' – just get out of it and like RIGHT AWAY!

Hmmm – easier said than done it turns out. I was so firmly snugged into this venus flytrap that nothing was moving – that happened to include my lungs. I began fighting with this rubberized tube and trying to get it OFF of me to no avail. I am now starting to panic for real – oh big surprise! I'm thinking mentally 'I can't breathe – HELP – as someone on the Playtex commercials used to say – my living girdle is killing me'! Or was it her living bra? At any rate, I'm struggling to just get an arm inside to loosen up the Spandex and try and pull it over my head but in so doing, now I have my arm trapped inside the tube as well. And it's my good arm!

I start to jump up and down now in the dressing room – I guess maybe I thought that somehow my lumps and bumps would dislodge it and it would somehow slither down my body and fall off – not so! If anything, all that sweating and stirring myself up was making it grow moist and it was clinging even tighter to me! I was SO mortified. What was I going to do? I just could not bring myself to screaming out 'HELP – I'm caught in my body snugger in the dressing room – bring scissors! It has me by the boobs!' But if there was a way out of this little predicament I was not seeing it clearly!

Okay – so now I'm beet red in the face (I can see myself in the mirror and I'm totally freaking out. I've got one arm in and one arm out and I'm being compressed like an accordion in this stupid piece of Spandex. Oh what I would have given for a pair of scissors in my purse – but then I'd have to use my left hand to do it and probably THAT wouldn't have worked except to stab myself. The thought of walking out to the waiting area and asking Bob to help me or shouting for him just really seemed too much. Again, there was NO WAY I was walking out of that dressing room stuck in a Spandex tube with my arm pinned inside.

So I just made up my mind I was going to slither out of this thing SOMEHOW. I worked and tugged, pushed and pulled, until FINALLY, FINALLY I was able to get the damned thing off of me and it hung limply around my neck. I was breathing like a bellows, I was drenched with sweat from jumping and gyrating and fighting with this stupid garment – my hair was standing on end and I was panting like I'd run a marathon. Who knew I was going to be in a wrestling match with a body shaper?

I literally threw it onto the bench as if it were evil – GET AWAY FROM ME – I wanted to burn it – I wanted to throw it as far as I could and I wanted to cut it to ribbons! I normally am not a violent person but that whole little squeezing escapade somehow just put me out of sorts! How can someone be claustrophobic in a piece of lingerie?

I carefully hung it back on the hanger and put it behind all the other bustiers just in case it decided to jump back onto my body. I then quickly picked the best of the bunch that I had tried on WITH FASTENERS I might add – and quickly put myself back together as best as possible and exited the dressing room. As I came around the corner and Bob stood to go up to the counter with me, he took one look at me and said astonished 'what the hell were you doing in there? You're all red and you're breathing like you ran a marathon – not to mention your hair looks a little crazy and you're sweating!' I just casually said 'oh nothing – just the heat was a little much in the dressing room I guess – must have been a hot flash'. Hot flash my eye!

When I went up to the cashier to pay, she looked at me a little funny – hard to miss a beet red face and tussled hair – not to mention the perspiration problem! She was probably wondering what I was doing in the dressing room too! She asked if I found everything okay and I just burst out laughing – 'oh yeah – more than found everything – but really, you folks should probably put warning labels on those tube things as in they can strangle you trying to put them on or take them off'. She just looked back at me a little dazedly – like 'whatever'.

Seriously I wanted to shout out 'where is the warning label on these things that donning one may be hazardous to your health? Am I the only person who ever got trapped in one? Shouldn't you sell them with scissors attached or a rip cord or something in the event of self-strangulation?' I would have been better off putting a plastic bag over my head! At least they could have a call button on them!

Ah well – I lived through it and never again have I tried or looked at a tube top of ANY kind. If I even see one in a store, I shudder and break out in a cold sweat. What if I had fainted in there from lack of oxygen and they had found me lying on the floor with one arm trapped up by my head? What if I'd kept on jumping and crashed through the mirror and cut myself to ribbons trying to free myself from the tube from hell? Bob as usual got the full story and of course got the predicted laugh out of it. He made me promise though if I ever got into trouble again in the dressing room to please, please come out or scream and yell for help – he said he would have come in and ripped it off of me in a second – and he would only have laughed 'a little' – yeah right! Do you think that they have 2-way mirrors and someone could see me? And if they could, why didn't THEY come help me?

• Never try and squeeze into anything smaller than you are around ESPECIALLY if it involves Spandex.
• Never try on anything in a tube alone – always use the buddy system – it could save your life.
• Always carry a cell phone and leave it open with a number dialed onto the screen just in case you are trapped in Spandex and you need to use your nose or a toe to hit TALK.
• Always care a small pair of scissors in your purse just in case this happens to you and learn to use them with either hand.
• Always and I mean every time - buy a bustier with a trap door – fasteners, ties, pull cord - ANYTHING – never assume that you will be able to get out of it without surgery.
• Most importantly, beware - Spandex is a miracle fabric but it CAN be deadly sometimes if you don't know what you are getting into - literally.