Booby Trap

I am the queen of ridiculous injuries.  I once suffered through six months of terrible back pain from sitting in a chaise lounge for a few hours.  I have caught myself on fire twice in the last two months.  I suffered a back injury from cutting grass...on a riding mower.  What follows is another story about another stupid injury.  I hope the laughter it provides you balances out the pain that I felt...

I found a website where you enter your body measurements, and the site generates a virtual model of you. It then tells you what clothes look good, what clothes don't, and even tells you where you can buy or order clothes online. I logged into the website and went to look for my seamstress tape measure. Of course I couldn't find it, but what I DID find was a really neat paper tape measure from IKEA. It's 36" long and I keep it in my flea marketing purse for measuring furniture, etc. It's lightweight and I always grab a few when I'm at IKEA because they're kind of cheaply made and tear easily. 

Anyway, I'm on my laptop in my living room and the website says you should measure without clothes, so I take my shirt off for my first measurement, my bust. The blinds were drawn, but since I have bamboo shades, I wasn't sure how much could be seen from outside, so I was determined to do my measuring quickly and efficiently. 

I take the paper tape measure, and try to wrap it around my boobs. Well, first of all, the measuring tape was twisted. I fumbled around with it for a minute or so, looking out the windows all the while, getting nervous that someone would see me. I finally get the measuring tape straightened out, and I go to pull it around my boobs, but since it's only 36" long, it's too short. 

Now I'm in a real panic as I'm standing half-naked in my living room. I look down on the coffee table and spot a magic marker. "Aha! I'll mark my boobs and then measure between the marks and add it all together!"  So I grab the marker and make my marks as quickly as I can. The measuring tape keeps falling so I have to keep grabbing it while holding it on one boob, magic marker in the other hand, eyes scanning four windows for Peeping Toms. By now, there are magic marker dots and smears all over my boobs. I finally give up and use a mole as a reference point. 

Now I'm ready to measure the "excess boobage," but as I slide the measuring tape across my boobs, I suddenly see stars as I slice across my boob (in a very sensitive area) with the measuring tape! You all know how painful paper cuts are...so you can imagine what a 3" long one across the boob feels like. 

I had to sit down and take deep breaths; I can only imagine what I looked like, sitting in my living room, shirtless, black smudges on my boobs, crumpled measuring tape laying on the couch, tears in my eyes. 

I will be investing the $5.00 for a new, REAL seamstress tape that I can keep in my sewing box.  I no longer care what my bust measurement is; that virtual model made me look fat anyway.