I’ve always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with my breasts. Maybe it's because as I was growing up, most people tended to notice them to the exclusion of me. It didn’t help that, like inconsiderate party guests, they showed up waaaay ahead of schedule. And didn’t bring a gift.

Ever had to take the pencil test? Your gym teacher, having decided that some untoward activity was going on under that tee-shirt during volleyball practice, would make an example of you in the locker room by making you put a pencil under your breast – if it stayed there, your mom got the call, announcing that it was time for a trip to the bra fitter. For me, that call came when I was in -- and this is no lie -- the third grade. My mom, seeing this as the 1,700th sign that she was getting old, was NOT amused. (That other conversation – “Honey, this means you’re a woman now” – didn’t take place for another two years, and necessitated a good stiff drink on my mom’s part.)

The bra fitter at McAllister’s Department Store in our little suburb looked a little nonplussed to encounter a 9 year-old in need of her services. (And, I ask you, what kind of woman – and if you’ve ever heard of a MALE bra fitter, clue me in -- wakes up one morning and decides that their life’s ambition is to be a bra fitter?) Obviously, THIS kind of woman, a hunchbacked, bespectacled down-at-the-heels crone who peered at me through her scary Coke bottle glasses and suggested in a wavery voice, “Let’s try a B.” A bit of an overstatement at that point, but maybe she was trying to boost (ha, ha) my confidence.

I don’t know if you remember bras from the ’60s, but most of them were covered with seams and itchy lace and had actual whale bones in them. They were horribly uncomfortable torture devices that made you look either: a) as if you had two cauliflowers sprouting from your chest, or, b) like the back end of a 1959 Thunderbird. And your color choices were white, white and, oh…white. The straps had no give in them at all, and tended to feel like razor blades digging into your shoulders, leaving in their wake deep trenches that are still extant today.

Having these two bizarre foreign appendages suddenly and uncomfortably yanked up to a place just under my chin had a predictable effect on my social life: the other girls in my class hated me, and the boys sat up (um…not gonna go there) and took notice! And not in a way I welcomed or desired. Among the girls there was a lot of jealous speculation: were they fake? And if so…showoff! And if not…showoff! And I noticed that suddenly, boys were “accidentally” bumping into me in the hallway and on the schoolbus a lot. So much so that I began using my books first as a shield, and later, as a weapon. I spent more time in the principal’s office and later, with an “anger management” specialist, than I care to remember.

I managed to get through school somehow, but not before I “helped” several boys qualify for our choir’s soprano section. And suggested to numerous dates, bosses, and other assorted males that as my breasts didn’t talk, they should stop directing all their conversation to them.

(Quick PSA: I should say here that I have a couple of friends who have sadly been reduced to one breast, or none. Knowing their experience has given me a new appreciation for mine. End of PSA.)

Happily, once I entered the wonderful world of the theatre, I finally saw “Huey” and “Louie,” as I had taken to calling them, for what they were: casting GOLD. (That’s if you enjoy playing wenches, shepherdesses, hookers and barmaids, anyway.) I described in my previous blog entry how they got me my first theatrical job. Of course, this was also my introduction to the wonderful world of the corset -- and how unreliable it could be. In my aforementioned debut, I was required in the climactic scene to pull a pendant out of my cleavage – one of those “he has one half, she has the other, we’re long-lost brother and sister, major celebration ensues” scenes. Naturally, when my entire immediate family, grandma, aunt, uncle, boss, and everyone I’ve ever met in my entire frickin’ LIFE was sitting in the audience, I pulled out the pendant and “Huey” and “Louie” came merrily popping out along with it.

My mom’s comment backstage afterwards? “Showoff!”