My House Is More Ghetto Than Your House: Home Bra Repair Clinic

All teenage girls have to suffer through bouts of unimaginable humiliation in public at the hands of their mother. I'm not generalizing here. I wrote ALL TEENAGE GIRLS and I most certainly do mean ALL TEENAGE GIRLS.
Admittedly, I registered pretty high on the Dork-O-Meter as a teenage girl. However, not even my super geekiness could spin a magic bubble to insulate me from the embarrassing things my mom did.
Really, there's just so many stories to choose from regarding my mother but the one incident that stands out at the forefront of my cerebellum involves the time my mom put her intimate apparel on display for the whole world to see.
Okay, maybe that's a bit melodramatic. I mean, my mom wasn't writhing about in a bullet bra and garters like Madonna while moaning the words to 'Like A Virgin' or anything like that but she did decide to liquidate her entire outgrown bra and lingerie collection at our neighborhood garage sale one balmy Texas Saturday.
I helped my mom lug the endless boxes of crap out of our house and then I arranged it all on tables for strangers to pick through. I always enjoyed watching bargain hunters show up to haggle with my mom because she expertly disguised her true nature as a Master of the Wheel And Deal behind her blond suburban mom coif and big smile. Her years growing up in farm country and going to auctions served her well.
Anyway, through the hodgepodge of mislabeled boxes that were souvenirs of our last move my internal alarm barely registered a blip when I spied the gigantic cardboard container with the word BRAS written in wide-tip black Sharpie marker across it.
And then my mom affixed a sign to the front of the box that read 'ALL BRAS-$1.00.'
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo........................
I got all disgusted with my mom and I kept shouting at her "What if the neighbors see this? What will they think? What about my friends? What if they show up and they go and tell everyone that my mom is a second-hand booby holder dealer? And furthermore, who the freak even buys used bras at a garage sale?"

My mom assured me that people would buy the bras......and buy the bras they did!

Big bras, little bras, bras to match your crocs, ugly bras, pretty bras, and even bras with red dots like chicken pox!

Hordes of bra hungry women excitedly rummaged through the Big Box Of Bras. Some of them even slipped the bras on over their shirts while they exaggeratedly puffed out their chests and paraded them around our driveway like it was some sort of Goodwill brassiere fashion show. (It's significantly less popular than the Victoria's Secret one.)

I looked at the scattered menagerie of bras that fell to the ground during the height of the bra stampede and I said a silent prayer of thanks that at such a brisk sales pace the bras should be gone before anyone we knew could see what nefarious offerings my mother was peddling at her garage sale of iniquity.

Granted, now that I'm an adult I fully understand what kind of ka-ching a good bra costs-- but I still can't imagine purchasing undergarments at a garage sale unless it's sponsored by a Maidenform sales rep.
Shamefully, I also have a whole drawer full of non-operational bras. It is really hard to find a comfortable titty restrainer.....it really is. You know, the friendly clerk inside the Kohl's Intimates Department is nice enough but she's not going to let me test-drive a new bra off the showroom floor--and really that's what I need. I need to test a bra out in all conditions to see how they adapt to my lifestyle. Can I work comfortably without it riding up on me? Does it make me have the dreaded Third-Boob Syndrome after a few hours of use? Are the hook enclosures easy to manage?
These are all important factors to consider. When I find a bra that I like I'll go back and stock up on that one bra model. Sadly, most of them fail the Infidel Boob Test so they get retired to the bottom of the drawer in my 'Emergency Bra Use Only' pile.
Here at La Casa De Smiling Infidel, we are on a very tight budget. There's no wiggle room for frivolous expenditures like frilly lace ta-ta torture chambers or brand new bazonga binder cups. No, I must make do with the crusty but reliable bras I already have.
In the spirit of resourcefulness unbounded I've started my own at-home bra rehabilitation clinic to extend the life of my bra favorites just a little bit longer...... Every day I fend off the deadly clutches of the Brassiere Grim Reaper.

Observe the stretched-out condition of this bra and how all the elastic strands have started showing through.

This is an easy Bra Doctor remedy that only requires the surgical precision of a good pair of sewing scissors.

See, a few snip-snips here and a few snip-snips there and it's like new once more!(Make note of the elastic amputees cast off to the side. It was quite a successful operation!)
I'm also skilled at bending the bra hooks back into shape with a pair of pliers. I'm an expert at severing the silly rose thing manufacturers stick in the middle of the bra giving you the appearance of having three nipples. I've sewn straps down that were trying to make a clean break away from the life and times of being an Elasticwaistbandlady bra. I've wielded a Super-Glue tube like nobody's business and permanently glued the adjuster clip thingies to ensure they don't slip down suddenly and leave me "hanging."

They tried to send me back to bra rehab. and I said YES! YES! YES! There's no shame in admitting you need bra help. Let me, your amateur Bra Doctor, assist you in your journey along the brassiere restoration path.