New rule for buying clothes or fashion hints for the chubby and busty

Always, always, always sit down in them before agreeing that they should come home with you. My local fashion consultants helped me to do this when I tried on jeans the other week (and came home with none). The jeans looked perfectly fine while I was standing up. (Well, aside from the fact that I have a dreadful muffin top but that's hardly the jeans' fault. I blame the kids for that.) But when I sat down, let's just say my nether region got more exposure than a model's at a thong underwear convention. And given that I am still wearing underwear I have owned from college (yes, it's old but it's perfectly serviceable and the elastic still works but you're feeling sorry for my husband now, aren't you?), exposing it to the world--or having it dragged down by denim, thereby turning into a bunched up rear-flossing mess when I stood up and causing me to contort myself to pluck it out of the depths--is not pretty. I did eventually find a pair that worked for me but not on that hysteria invoking, shameless explosure trip. So I now appreciate the art of sitting down in pants before buying them.

But, no one told me that this needed to be extended to shirts, and specifically shirts with buttons, as well. I found and bought a cute shirt that gaped a tad at the buttons at the bustline. My fashion consultant promised that once I hiked the mountain range back to altitude, the shirt would no longer gap, inspiring a bra shopping trip. She was correct. Unfortunately, she didn't take into consideration the fact that I don't stand around all day long. I go from seat to seat. Usually this is in private so no one else knows what a slug I'm being but occasionally I have to loaf in public. And yesterday was one of those days.

So, wanting to look cute in public, I donned the darling shirt, checked that there was no gapping, and went on my way. As I drove to my book club meeting, I noticed that I had gaps between almost all of the buttons the entire length of the shirt. I wrote it off to the seatbelt pulling it strangely and made a mental note to tug it all back gapless when I arrived. This was all well and good until I sat down with the group. Instant gappage. What the heck kind of rearranging does my body fat do to make this happen? Does it lie in wait to squish out in any direction it spies freedom? One whiff of air and the thought of exposure to said air and it wobbles with delight towards buttons with alacrity? I mean really! How is my sitting torso so different from my standing torso that this happens? Does all the fat slide down to my butt and hips when faced with gravity as I stand? Whatever the reason, I had to endure book club, lunch afterwards, and then my haircut with peekaboo cellulite. At least once my hair was washed at the salon, they mercifully covered me with a cape. That short may be cute but the odds of me wearing it again are about zero. Poop. And here I thought I had a shot at being marginally stylish. Then again, I am a woman who still wears underwear that is almost 20 years old so I was probably deluding myself all along.