Swimsuit Shopping

Just the title of this post probably raises most readers' blood pressure by one or two posts. In my experience there is nothing worse than shopping for a bathing suit if you are overweight obese.

This morning, though, everyone in the house decided we had to buy bathing suits. Our kid likes to swim, and she already has one. However, the two adult lard balls chez nous have no such attire. The kid has been complaining, "you never take me to the pool!"

Her accusations are fair enough. After all, it's not a lot of fun to pay for our kid to swim for two hours while we sit on the rock hard benches watching her have fun while we breathe the over-chlorinated indoor air. We did it when one of our daughter's friends had her 10th birthday party, and it was a drag. We did it grudgingly in support of the birthday girl, who happens to be the daughter of a dear friend. We haven't been too eager to pay money to be bored ever since.

When we set off our our swimsuit shopping adventure, I expected to blog about the trials and tribulations of finding a swimsuit. I expected to blog about all the stores we visited, all the ugly suits we didn't buy, and the endless frustration in finding that the largest suits on the racks were still at least 10 sizes too small.

I mentioned to my stepmother (who is also large but shrinking) and she suggested we save ourselves some frustration and just drive up to a chain specialty shop that carries only large women's clothes. Since it's close to a specialty grocery store chain my stepmother loves, we brought her along for the ride.

With a minimum of fuss and hassle, we found swim suits that fit. I bought a suit that was a two-piece set where the tops and bottoms were sold separately. The bottoms looked like Lycra running shorts, and the top was kind of a shirt-looking thing with spaghetti straps. I'm glad the suits were sold as separates, because I had to buy the bottoms in a larger size than the top. I was lucky, the first set of bottoms I picked off the rack fit (they were the largest size) and I only had to try on two tops to get the right size.

I'm not thrilled with the suit, but the worst of my ugly bits are at least covered. I won't look any worse than the other whales we've sighted at the pool. When I jump in, I'll just become another one of the pod. My suit is mostly black with a blue stripe, so perhaps I could pretend I'm a blue whale or something. I just hope I don't confuse the lifeguards -- I wouldn't want them coming after me with a harpoon.

The only really bad part of the swimsuits were their price tags. We paid $70 each for the swimsuits, and that was after the 20% discount. Unbelievable. I have never spent so much money on swimming clothes in my life. When I saw the price tag, I thought about putting the suit back on the rack, but decided against it, only because the amount of whining my kid can exude is probably more than the hassle of paying so much for a pair of swimsuits.

Oh well, at least mine is really stretchy. Hopefully I won't shrink out of it too soon.

Note to self: Now I have yet another reason to lose weight. Stores charge an arm and a leg for plus-sized swim wear.