ridiculous

The Honeycomb by Ginger Truitt
Boone County Sun Times
April 21, 2004

Bill O’Reilly of Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor always ends his show with the most ridiculous item of the day. Well, let me share with you the most ridiculous item I have seen today. My husband receives lots of junk email. The subject lines promise such things as: Find your perfect mate! Make $35,000 monthly! Eat chocolate and lose twenty pounds! (Chocolate laxatives maybe) And my personal favorite, Get the cleavage you deserve!

The cleavage email always includes photos of beautiful women frolicking on the beach, or tossing their hair back at a party, or gently wrapped in the embrace of Mr. Stud Muffin. Regardless of their activity they somehow manage to keep their chest turned in direct view of the camera and we are made fully aware that their lives would be much less fulfilling if they didn’t have fabulous cleavage. You never see a picture of a woman looking seductively into the camera while mopping the floor or changing poopy diapers. We are never asked to lust after the cleavage of women comparison shopping for canned goods in aisle six or serving tater tots to a class of third graders at the school cafeteria.

So I have to ask, what did the women in these photos do to “deserve” this cleavage? Are they wonderful humanitarians? Did they save someone’s life? Do they work selflessly to help the less fortunate? Doesn’t it seem like if having cleavage the size of the Grand Tetons would make your life more wonderful, the people who “deserve” it are the ones who are selflessly contributing to society?

Now I know some perfectly respectable women who are quite well endowed, but most of us have learned to enjoy life, love with our husbands, and have a good time in spite of the fact that our entire chest headed south right after weaning our first child. I’m just saying it’s ridiculous to assume that enhancing your décolletage is going to make your life more worth living. If cleavage is all you’ve got going for you, you are pretty much on the fast track to misery and despair because eventually it will drop just like everyone else’s. And then what? No more beaches, no more parties and no more Mr. Stud Muffin.

I have always been diligent about preventing sag. Since the age of ten I haven’t gone a day in my life without wearing a bra. My mother warned me that if I did I would end up a droopy mess. She impressed the fact upon me by pointing out a bra-less woman at the grocery store who was sporting a steep downward grade under her white tank top. But even after all those years of restriction, my breasts still seem quite anxious to meet my waistline.

So, I thought about emailing this company to find out how they determine which cleavage I deserve. How do they know what should be rightfully mine? Do I have to take a test of some sort to evaluate my worthiness? (Hopefully they grade on a curve.) If I’m a horrible person do I deserve ugly cleavage? Do I deserve to look like Farrah Fawcett? Janet Jackson? Mama Cass? Grandma Moses?

Come to think of it, I already have the cleavage I deserve, even if I do have to use duct tape to bring it up to par. I am a real woman, with real breasts, real kids, and a real life. If I did have fuller cleavage I couldn’t show it off anyway. Where would I wear it? The grocery store? The homeschool moms’meetings? While I’m mowing grass or cleaning out the fridge? How about while I’m butchering chickens or sorting laundry? Oh! I know! I could display it when I go to the local movie theater on Friday nights so everybody could say, “Did you see the cleavage on that honeycomb woman?” Puhleeze! I deserve more than cleavage. I deserve to have a fabulous life regardless of my cleavical status. Sounds like a good subject line for a mass email, “Get what you deserve in spite of your cleavage.” (By the way, cleavical is not really a word. I just made that up.) And that, my friends, is the most ridiculous item of the day.