Tag: rant

What a Deal!

Have you been looking to expand your family? No? Well, let’s say you want to expand your army of tiny people for garden gnomes or Civil War reenactment or world domination or whatever. I don’t know your life or hobbies. Look no further! I have just the thing for you.

I will grant you, she’s not mint condition. She’s been out of the box almost two years. She runs like a dream, though, if your dreams involve cheetahs on methamphetamines. Appearance is mostly good, aside from a few dings here and there (which will probably buff right out) and a haircut that took place over the course of a week and forty episodes of Bubble Guppies.

Aside: What the fuck is wrong with that show? Don’t give me that “guppies” bullshit. I know what a guppy looks like and I know what a mermaid looks like and I will not be hoodwinked just because mermaids are apparently copyrighted or no one at Nickelodeon could be bothered to Google basic marine life. Also, they have water balloons and campfires so are they or are they not underwater? I lie awake at night wondering about this.

Where was I?

Oh, right. Care and feeding. This is not at all difficult. Basically her favourite food is whatever you had the previous night and she fed to the dog. You might be fooled into thinking that her asking for a particular food means she will eat that food, but you really can just save yourself the time and squish it between your own fingers before throwing it in the trash. Of course this does not hold true for fresh fruits and berries. The more expensive and out of season, the faster they will disappear into her tiny gullet. “No matter,” you think. “We have an orchard in sunny California.” Well, I hope you also have a cat because now cat hair is her favourite food, unless of course it’s on tonight’s menu.

She comes with all her own clothes and toys and books, so you don’t need to worry about that. I hope you like Dr. Seuss, because you’ll be reading Green Eggs and Ham fifteen times a night! Hahahaha, I’m only kidding. I don’t give a shit if you like Dr. Seuss or not.

I am happy to say that she is super smart. You might think this means she is exceptionally trainable, but people think all sorts of wrongheaded things, don’t they? Anyway, she knows all about trapezoids and the alphabet so if that’s useful to you when you’re figuring out how to reset your phone’s language to English, have at it. If you can figure out the context of her whole monologue about birds and ghosts in her room, let me know because I am thisclose to posting a separate ad for an exorcist.

If you have some level of hearing loss or, failing that, are used to the piercing shrieks of birds of prey, this could be just the kid you’re looking for. Don’t contact me tonight, because she is currently a sleeping cherub surrounded by golden light and the laughs of fairies. Wait until her inevitable transformation into a demon ferret by lunchtime tomorrow.

Call me!

Busting Out All Over

There are three little words that every big-busted woman out there has grown to know and love. “I’m up here.”

In the interest of precision and honesty, I will tell you that at current measurements, I am a 36H. To give you a bit of context for that, picture a fairly normal ribcage and stack two cantaloupes on it side by side. I don’t blame you if you can’t quite picture it, though. Even Google has a hard time with it. For comparison, I just typed “36C” into Google Images.


Mostly breast-related, right? Now try “36H”.


After several pages of results, there’s nary a tit to be seen. When I typed in “36H breasts” (an activity I highly recommend if you’re at work, by the way), the results may as well have come back like this.


It’s aggravating, to say the least.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate my body. Aside from the back problems, I kind of dig the buxom look. Strap those suckers up right and I can fill out a sweater so well you’d speak in tongues. It’s not the breasts. It’s the accompanying… unpleasantness.

The indignity starts as soon as I get dressed in the morning. Where a woman of more modest proportions has bras, I have buttresses. I open the drawer to see plain black and beige staring back at me like a stern German governess. The odd bit of cheerful bright lace peeks out, but the price tag relegates them to special occasion status. Sorry, flirty blue, sultry red, pretty purple. I can’t play today. You are a Sometimes Bra. Fräulein needs to go to work now.

Wait, let me back up a second. Did I mention the price tag? Because shelling out the equivalent of one of my utility bills to look like someone’s tattooed grandmother under my clothes is not an experience I particularly relish. It is of no help whatsoever that when I go into La Senza (the Canadian equivalent of Victoria’s Secret and just as incompetent, if not moreso), I am set upon by some clueless salesgirl who is dead set on selling me whatever bra is the next big thing. The last time I was there looking for underwear, this exchange followed.

Perky Salesgirl: Hi! Can I interest you in the new WatersexxxTek bra? It features a triple push-up with water-filled inserts and a clever hidden atomizer filled with our newest perfume, Fancy Pomegranate Slut!

Me: No thanks. I’m just here to look at the underwear. Where are those little Brazilian cheeky things that are really ass-flattering?

Perky Salesgirl: Are you sure? It’s available in all 216 hexadecimal colour codes!

Me: No thank you. You guys don’t actually carry my size, so I’ll just continue looking at the underwear, thanks. Where are the ones I was looking for?

Perky Salesgirl: (confused) We don’t carry your size? We have everything up to DD-cup!

Me: Ha. Hahaha. No. I’m an H-cup. The underwear…?

Perky Salesgirl: …are you sure a DD-cup wouldn’t fit?

Me: I… what? Yes, I’m sure. Having had them since elementary school, I know where my tits are and are not willing to go. They will bound cheerfully into well-fitted bras, the odd corset, and into the capable hands of professorial-looking dudes in glasses. They will balk like a spooked horse at going into strapless dresses, halter tops, games of strip poker since 2007, and I can tell you as sure as I’m standing here that they are not going anywhere close to a DD-cup bra.

Perky Salesgirl: I can check in the back for an E-cup…

Me: No. Please find me an employee who will help me find what I’m looking for. Preferably one that is of voting age.

And so forth.

It’s the comments that really seal it, though. What’s weird is that the worst of it doesn’t come from men. Men stare too long sometimes, but only the most juvenile and crass will say something. Pretty much all the worst and most demeaning comments come from other women.

“Ugh, thank God I don’t look like that. I don’t know how she stands up.” (Just fine, thanks. You’d find it doesn’t impede my right hook much, either.)

“Holy shit, you’ve got really big boobs.” (Holy shit! So I do. I managed not to look down once since puberty.)

“Wow, Jugs! No trouble to tell what the guys like you for, is it?” (Thank you! I didn’t realize intelligence and a daffy sense of humour was as obvious upon first glance as being a shallow bitch!)

“Are they real? Can I touch them?” (They are imaginary and no you may not.)

I probably sound bitter and I don’t mean to. It’s just that I’ve had a total of seventeen years of this kind of bullshit, and it gets tiresome.  It’s not much fun being remembered by casual acquaintances as “the one with the tits”. It’s kind of irritating to be treated like Sideshow Boob by strangers.

Still, it’s hard not to smile on those good days, the tight sweater days. A little vexation and a whole lot of va-va-voom. Not the worst trade-off.

Nice Boys Don’t

Being single agrees with me for the most part. I get to plan my weekends without having to have the conversation of I Didn’t Know It Was Your Mother’s Birthday, You Need To Tell Me These Things More Than Two Days Before. I get all the pillows to myself.  No one makes fun of me for watching Colin Firth movies for an entire afternoon. I’ve had a couple of flirtations and flings in the last few months, but nothing too intense. I simply didn’t want to date.

Of course, it’s late May and spring has sprung, and with it came spring fever. The world is shiny and new and maybe, just maybe, it’d be nice to have someone to share it with. Unfortunately, I’m at that stage in life where most of my friends have paired off and are only friends with other paired off people. Not being possessed of the patience necessary to wait it out until people’s starter marriages begin failing, I dipped a toe into online dating.

It’s harrowing, of course. The city I’m in is relatively small and doesn’t have the selection that a place the size of, say, Toronto or Vancouver would. I get a fair amount of messages, but I don’t pretend that it’s because I’m special in any way. Sure, I’m moderately attractive and can string a sentence together, but anyone with a vagina can attract a certain amount of attention online simply by nature of having a place on the body in which to insert a penis. Frankly, I’d wager the same amount of success could be achieved by a sentient Fleshlight, or even a lukewarm bag of Spaghetti-Os. The messages are mostly unobjectionable, if somewhat lacking in good spelling, but mostly the problem is not having anything in common.

Unless, of course, the problem is the Nice Guy. Ohhhhh, how I loathe the Nice Guy.

A Nice Guy is not to be mixed up with a nice guy, of course. I know nice guys. I’ve dated some of them. They let me sleep on their couches when I’ve had too much to drink, bake me pie for my birthday, and send me animations of bouncing breasts when I’m feeling down. The Nice Guy is the guy who says and does all the things he thinks he needs to do to get in your pants and then considers you the problem when it doesn’t work. The problem clearly isn’t that they are either transparent as hell or that they never made anything constituting an actual move. Oh, no, clearly the problem is you, the fickle and stupid woman, for actually appreciating the more direct approach.

Courtesy of A Softer World

“All women want are jerks,” they grump. “They talk about how all they want is a nice, sweet guy who will treat them like a queen and then turn around and go for the hot guy who treats them like shit.” Oh, fuck off out of it, Lloyd Dobler. In the first place, I’ve never asked to be treated like a queen. I want a guy with a sense of humour and a spark and a personality that meshes with mine, a guy who will treat me with respect. Me, the person I am. Not as some generic woman. The reason I don’t want your flowers and sonnets is because that’s not who I am and if you’d bothered to get to know me beyond the fact that I have a matching pair of X chromosomes, you’d understand that. Romance is fine, but when you’re acting as if all women are the same, it’s not romantic. It’s bullshit, and we can usually smell it from a mile away. How is it respectful to me or you to live your life as though you’re holding a sign up that says “Will Act As Doormat For Pussy”? Is that what being nice means to you? Maybe that’s why you’re striking out.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that women can’t be hypocrites or stupid or what have you. Of course we can. I’ve known some girls who were horror stories enough that they’d curl your hair. But seriously, don’t act as if I’m stupid and then be offended when I don’t swoon at you trying to clumsily pluck out “Crash Into Me” on your acoustic guitar. I have enough experience now to know what I want, and it isn’t someone who thinks so little of me that they assume I don’t know what’s good for me. Slow your roll, Prince Smarming. I have a weekend with Colin Firth planned and it doesn’t involve you.