Swimsuit Shopping

Is there anything worse? Seriously. I would rather be cowering in a bunker with bombs going off all around me in the middle of the hot-sand desert than go swimsuit shopping. No kidding. Maybe clothing is too broad of a category if these little fabric pieces of origami can be called clothing. Whose idea was this anyway? I’ll tell you who—the same sadistic guy who invented high-heels. He sat around one day thinking, “How can I get women to walk around wearing toothpicks strapped to their heels? Aha! I’ll make them in hot pink with silver buckles. They won’t be able to resist!” Similarly he convinced us to squeeze our post-baby bodies into sausage wrappers by using Heidi Klum to model the darn things! That and our men seem to be convinced that the more skin we reveal, regardless of how white or wrinkled it may be, the sexier we are. Again I blame Heidi Klum for that one.


We prefer our men somewhat covered up at the beach. No woman in her right mind wants to see the fattest nation in the world lounging on the beach in a wide assortment of colorful jockey shorts. And please tell the man over there shooting a can of cheese-whiz directly in his mouth that it’s sacrilegious to stretch the American flag across your butt. We have imaginations and men don’t. That’s why we prefer that they leave a few things to the imagination and cover up. They also don’t have to worry about us having back hair.

I ask myself, once again, just what fifteen-year-old Victoria’s Secret model this little number was designed for as I pull another swimsuit off the rack. It’s mainly a bunch of strings knotted together with the occasional patch of fabric in between. It reminds me of macramé potted-plant holders, only this thing isn’t going to hold anything bigger than a Dixie-cup. I shove it back on the rack and continue flipping through. Maybe I should just be honest with myself and head for the dreaded old-lady racks. Except that I hate trying to swim in those skirt-bottom things and the tan lines you get from swimwear that reaches your neck are hilarious. No wonder my grandmother claimed she was allergic to water.

I walk into the dressing room with a variety of self-esteem crushing swimsuits tucked under my arm and I head down the aisle, carefully choosing the room with the almost-dead flickering fluorescent lights above it. There is no need to further ruin the day by seeing all these suits under full glaring light. I’m about halfway through the stack, many of which have been rejected because I can actually see my c-section scar, when my phone beeps. It’s a text from my friend wondering where I am. I type back, “I’m in swimsuit hell. Dante had it so good.” She returns with, “Just do what I do. Ask yourself, does this suit make my ankles look good? Then find a good cover-up. That’s what I wear the most anyway.” Leave it to a friend to make you realize that bitching in a dimly lit dressing room isn’t going to make designers change their ways. I pick one of the most flattering (translated least hopelessly humiliating) swimsuits, and two backup suits because I refuse to engage in swimsuit shopping ever again, before hitting the big-dress racks. And I realize, as I sift through row after row of embroidered linen and soft butter-yellow knits that this is where swimsuit shopping should always end.

The next weekend, I’ve unloaded the boat and I’m sitting in my bright-red cover-up, under a white wide-brimmed hat waiting for my husband to park the truck. I watch as people emerge from their cars, ready to enjoy a summer-day. Aside from a few bikini-clad hard-bodied teenagers, most of the women have chosen to brave the sun and surf in sundresses and flip-flops with red toenail polish peeking out. And I smile. I’m not the only woman who has found the secret to swimsuit happiness, we just had to outsmart the string-bikini.