No, I have not been discomboobulated yet!

Yes, I know that word only has one “o” but in my case I think it should be a double. FINALLY, two weeks from today, I will be at MD Anderson in Houston, finding out the fate of said boobies.

I say “boobies” because where one goest, I think the other should goest. After all, they are a matched set, unlike my daughter’s whose set doesn’t match at all. I’m not giving away secrets here. To see the disparity, one only has to look at her — when she’s naked, which hardly counts at all since she is a workaholic, doesn’t date, and isn’t married. I mean, the girl is hardly ever naked nowadays, even though she works from home and could be naked 24/7 if she wanted to be. [This paragraph is a test for my daughter to see if she REALLY reads The Texas Woman!]

Anyway, I don’t want to have to go through life trying to keep my chest level or equally poufed. I’m too old for vanity, too young for cancer, which reminds me of my cousin Janice who says she's too light for heavy housework and too heavy for light housework. I always liked Janice. I should keep in touch more often.

I won’t miss my C cups at all. At least that’s how I feel right now. I might feel different when I wake up with nothing. Nada. Zip.

I have been busy while waiting to be summoned to The Big C Hospital. M-I-L has been critically ill…twice. We’re talking with Hospice today to put in motion her next steps through life. Such sadness and, between her situation and mine, such pressure on my poor husband. Thank God for his strong shoulders and loving heart.

The Great Zipper Hunts

My Aunt Nell was the original queen of all things pre-approved (read: used). She recycled and junked long before garage sales were an idea in some crazy woman’s head.

Even though Aunt Nell didn’t have yard sales to go to, she did have an old, musty secondhand store in the neighborhood. When Aunt Nell needed sewing notions, she’d give her daughter Janice and me a couple of nickels and send us up the hill to THE STORE. With color in mind and size (buttons), length (zippers), and width (lace), Janice and I would sort through richer women’s relinquished clothing at THE STORE, trying to match their parts to Aunt Nell’s needs.

I think that’s where my appreciation for box-digging and treasure hunting first outed. It helped, of course, that the boxes held the cheaper clothing. Rack clothing, the more expensive items (fifty cents, at least), wasn’t nearly as interesting and anyway, if Janice and I saved a little money on the soon-to-be-ripped-up and recycled clothing, we could get gum on the way back home. New gum. Gum that hadn’t been chewed yet.

You see, we didn’t just spit our gum out when we grew tired of it. We saved it on little china hands so we could chew it later in the day, or the next day, or even the next week, although that was a hard chew and sometimes a little dusty. But all that old gum needed was a quick rinse at the kitchen sink (the only sink in the house) and our strong, youthful teeth to whip it into chewability.

So with new gum at stake, Janice and I participated weekly in great zipper hunts because Aunt Nell needed lots of zippers, especially dress zippers.

Dress zippers aren’t found in lower end stores nowadays but they were real popular back then when women wore dresses and pearls to clean their houses (shudder!). These zippers are closed at both ends. Think an operation with a zipper closure.


Or a mouth that must be unzipped in order to eat.

These zippers are normally used at waistlines on fitted dresses so women (or cross-dressing men with good figures) can slip them easily over their heads.

But, of course, Aunt Nell had other ideas for the dress zippers. She invented Aunt Nell’s Little Picnic Helpers (ANLPHs).

In An Lefts, as my Uncle John called the Little Helpers, a dress zipper was placed in the crotch.

You see, we camped out in the mountains a lot. A LOT! And Aunt Nell, noting how fortunate men were in such peeing situations, created An Lefts, enabling us girls to squat and go as easily as any guy, without exposing our bare bottoms to the cold mountain air.