Swimsuit Shopping

The Mom of No has two shades of skin tone:  extremely pale and bright red.  A few years ago, I had a basal cell carcinoma spot removed off my back, and the dermatologist suggested that I get an "SPF shirt" to wear as a cover-up.  I ordered one online, and after I wore it once, I fell in love with it.  Not because it kept me from getting sunburn on my back, although it does which makes it well worth the money I paid for it, but because no one could really see what my bathing suit looked like underneath it.

The first time I wore it to the water park, six people asked me where I'd bought it and one guy asked me if I was all covered up because of my religion.  Nunyas, I told him.  As in none of your business.

I hate shopping for bathing suits. I suspect it's an experience generally loathed by women.  Men, apparently, can just walk into any clothing store and buy a pair of bathing trunks.  No one tells men how to select the best bathing suit for their body shape.  Teenage boys don't have to worry if their bathing suit might be too revealing for the youth mission trip, or if a bathing suit top is going to fall down if they go down the really steep slide at the water park.   Half the time, they don't even have to do the shopping; every year I go to Target and buy the Son of Never Stops Eating three suits, same style, different color. 

Bathing suit shopping is a classic example of how something that should be simple is actually extremely complicated.  First, the bathing suits come out in January.  Seriously, who wants to buy a bathing suit when it's thirty degrees outside, and you've just finished the holiday season with all those high calorie treats?  The last thing I want to do in January is shop for anything because I have shopping burnout from November and December.

Second,  unless you go online to order a bathing suit, which I have done, but am not a fan of because I almost always end up sending the first one back, a simple one-piece bathing suit does not, apparently, exist.  The stores sell the bottoms separately from the tops, so people like me who are fashion-challenged stand there, asking "Does this go with this? They have this top in my size, but not the bottom".  All I want to do is walk into a store, select a bathing suit, pay for it, and leave.  This, evidently, is nearly impossible.

Then there is all this not-helpful advice about what style you should select.  Are you pear-shaped? Apple shaped?  Tall and lanky? Petite?  Do you want your torso to look longer? Do you want to minimize or maximize your bust?  Do you want bling on your bathing suit? (the Mom of No does not do bling).  No matter which style you select, judging happens.  Either your suit is too dowdy or too revealing. 

This is what I want: I want a bathing suit that I can wear to the pool and do laps, or wear to the beach and jump in the waves.  I want to spend less than an entire day shopping for it, and I want it to cost less than my monthly car payment.  And I want the danged thing to actually fit. 

This bathing suit does not exist.

But now that I have my beloved SPF shirt,  it doesn't really matter if the suit is plain black or has some eye-popping floral pattern on it that reminds me of wallpaper from the 1970's.  Because no one will actually see it.