bras bras bras, those wonderful bras...

i thought i'd already written this on my blog this week, but in looking at what i've written apparently i just dreamed that i wrote it.

i have a question about bras.

while asking this question i will be speaking with vast generalizations, i do realise this doesn't hold true for all women, but this is speaking from my personal experience and from conversations i've had with many other women...

now, the question (i can tell you're dying to know what the question is, i'm just trying to build suspense, the anticipation makes what is otherwise a mundane question that much more interesting...) why do you suppose it is that:

when you're young, in say, grade 7 or 8, you fight the idea of wearing a bra tooth and nail. there is little that you can imagine being more mortifying than having someone, especially a *gasp* boy, notice that you are wearing a bra. about the only thing more mortifying at that age is the idea of someone finding a pad or tampon in your backpack (wait, these both seem to have something to do with growing up, hmmmmm....) but...

when you're an adult the idea of leaving the house without a bra on is unthinkable? or, well, not unthinkable, but it usually accompanies the grotty jeans and sweat shirt that you are wearing to go grocery shopping at some stupidly early hour on a saturday morning (which for me is something like 10am, stupidly early is completely relative) and you are assuming that the chances are one in a million that you're going to see anyone you know so you don't care. but then, inevitably you see someone, probably that hot guy from the video store that you are always flirting with in that totally innocent, but still really nice feeling ego-boosting kind of way, and you spend the whole conversation with your arms crossed in front of you hoping that he will overlook the dishevelled unwashed hair, the ripped sweatshirt and the 13 year old jeans (the ones that are the most comfortable pair of pants in the world but have only reached this level of comfort enlightenment by sacrificing the shallow values held by other loftier pairs of pants, things like attractiveness, a flattering fit, a lack of holes, etc.) and just, well, just not notice that on top of all that you're not wearing a bra.

wait. where was i going with this?

oh yeah, why embarrassed to be wearing a bra when young, and embarrassed to not be wearing a bra when old... er... um... post-teen?