stereotypical single woman

Today is just one of those days when you realize that you’re going spend all day just fulfilling your basic human needs - food, warmth, and cleanliness (you thought I was going to put sex in there too, weren’t you?) I just paid my DTE Energy bill, so that takes care of warmth, I definitely have to go grocery shopping later for food, but right now I am in my parent’s basement doing about 12 loads of laundry. A few days ago I had reached the end of my clean clothes. For that last week I have been forced to either go commando or drag out the itchy underwear that you buy and wear only when you have a boyfriend because it looks sexy and you know he’ll like it, but it’s as uncomfortable as hell, so you only wear it if you know it’ll be coming off soon.

I hate doing laundry - partly because I have to lug everything over to my parent’s house to do it (I do have some money saved away to purchase a washer and dryer, but after the last DTE bill I’m thinking that it’ll be smarter to just save that money for the next few months to help take care of the warmth need this winter), and partly because I have so many clothes that are classified as “hand wash delicates” - particularly my bras - that I spend most of the afternoon hand washing and drip drying various delicate garments - which of course amuses my father to no end everytime he comes into the basement.

I suppose that I could just throw them all into the delicate cycle of the washing machine but I spend way too much money on my bras to even tempt facing the fury of the underwire gods - the care label says hand wash so hand wash you must. They watch over you and inflict their revenge when you least expect it - and there are very few things more uncomfortable than being at work and realizing that you have an underwire working it’s way out of your bra cup and stabbing you in the armpit. It’s not a good situation because there are only two solutions to this problem - you either go to the bathroom and push it back in every half hour or so and develop a lovely bruise where it’s stabbing you or take it out and walk around with one perky boob and one saggy boob for the rest of the day. I’ll usually start with enduring the pain, rationalizing that I’m strong, and have a high pain endurance, but inevitably during one of the bathroom trips I’ll notice that the cap has come off the end of the wire and is breaking the skin so I always eventually end up taking the saggy boob option and try to stay hunched over my computer, hoping no one notices.

The worst part of the underwire popping out is that there is no way to fix it. Trust me, I have a Masters in costume construction, I can make just about anything but fixing a Victoria’s Secret bra just boggles my mind. None of the sewing tricks I have learned has worked to restore an underwire to the correct position for more than an hour or so of wear. They really and truly are feats of engineering, which would be why they can charge $50 each. Sure you can get cheaper ones, but thanks to genetics and a healthy appetite I am a 38D, and after years of searching I have found no other manufacturer that makes a bra in that large of a size that is as well made, comfortable, sexy, and can make the girls look as perky as they did 5 years ago (gravity is a cruel bitch.) So I continue with the handwashing - oh well.