Sometimes all you can do is laugh

“Can you come here for a minute?”

I heard the familiar refrain come from the direction of Miss Cathy’s bedroom the other morning as I got out of bed to greet a new day.

 “I can’t even put my damn bra on!” She said with disgust.

Well, at least she’s not trying to put her tee shirt on as pants I thought to myself as I wiped the last of sleep from my eyes.

And sure enough, as I walked the few feet into her room my newly wakened eyes saw that her bra was not only on backwards…it was inside out as well.

It’s been about a month now since her step downward; it started with a loss of vision, compounded by confusion over the ability to see and use everyday objects. And now the simplest of tasks (things she’s been doing her entire life) have become complicated.

Watching her struggle with her under garment, as if someone had made an over the shoulder Rubik’s cube instead of a brassiere, looking nothing like the iconic Horst P. Horst photo of a woman caught in the act of snapping her brassiere, so famously paid tribute to in Madonna’s “Vogue” music video, Miss Cathy seemed as emotionally twisted as her bra straps.

She’d managed to put one strap up over her shoulder but the other was lost under a fold of skin in her armpit, somehow the back was in the front, the whole thing was inside out and the closures were pressed down on her breasts with the cups hanging off her back, looking about as useful as tits on a bull.

“How in the world?” I started to say, then I had to laugh and so did she.

“Damn!” she said between chuckles as I gently unhooked the closures, releasing her ample bosom, taking the garment off her to reconceive it for its intended purpose.

“All these damn titties!” She said looking down at herself and talking as if she were divulging a secret her body was not aware of.

“I hate these fuckers!”

“Well” I said giggling, helping her to put her brassiere on correctly.

Nothing like seeing an old lady topless, especially your mom, first thing in the morning to let you know what kinda day you’re in for.

“Put you boobs away.”

“I wish I could cut ‘em off! I hated them even when I was a girl and they first started growing. I know men are suppose to like’m.” She said, arranging herself into her bra.

“I wonder what they’d think if they had them instead of balls and they had to lug’m around all the time.”

I helped her snap shut the last closure in the back the helped her with put on her top tehn said, “I’m sure if they had tits and no balls they’d think they were women.”

….more laughter.