Push-Ups: Fleshy Little Pancakes

I thought about breasts today. And not the chicken breasts that are often sliced and diced, baked and grilled and sauteed, and otherwise kitchen-prepped into edible submission under my supervision. No. No. My mind has been on those fleshy growths which protrude from most women's chests. I say MOST women because mine border on concave, especially after feeding all three of the fruit of my womb from the milk of my body. that's why I especially enjoy the self-deprecating humor of Kelly Ripa (Google her if you don't recognize the name -- does Regis Philbin help ring a few bells?) who is in the same boobie boat. And why, even on days when my mammary glands aren't being lifted and laid out by clean cool hands, which don't belong to me and are NOT gloved, onto metal-and-plastic contraptions which emit radioactivity in minute portions, I think about breasts.

The Contraption. Use your imagination.

Sometimes I wish I had been endowed with just a smidge more than the fried egg dopplegangers which are incapable of stopping even the smallest crumbs from tumbling straight into my lap. Part of the reason for all of my many push-ups is the lift they give to the muscles surrounding my dried-up self-contained milk jugs. (OK. I'll stop. I briefly channelled the guy psyche within that entertains himself by attaching all manner of ridiculous names to the beloved breast.) Sometimes I half-heartedly consider the option of surgical enhancement. But only just. There's the money issue. Even if I bought one at a time, or put them on layaway, we'd have to go without new truck tires or veterinary care or, good golly, Starbucks for a very long time! And then there's the daily knowledge that something foreign was lodged just below the surface of skin and muscle on my frame for no other reason than to fill out a bra. It's not like anything is wrong with my girls, other than my dissatisfaction with their proportions. It's not like anyone has said, "You would be such an attractive person . . . if you filled out a bra like a Victoria's Secret model." I know women who had significant structural issues with their breasts -- one pointing up and/or to the side, or a difference of several cup sizes between the two, or the obvious complications resulting from breast cancer -- and that's a whole other ball game. My 'nature girl' mentality may be a bit too rooted in my gray matter to accommodate breast augmentation simply for the sake of societal beauty. And that's all right. Most days. I never said I wasn't vain to some extent.

Leave it to the professionals.

So, in my conversation this morning with the technician in charge of exposing my breasts to radiation for the sake of detecting anything irregular in them, I asked what proved more challenging: small breasts or large breasts? Generally speaking, she had to go with the big guns. Some women had breasts which could cover the resting plate of the scanner bed three or four times over. "Those must be imaged several times and pieced together like a puzzle, making sure not to miss any area in the process," she informed me, "I feel sorry for them because that's got to be so uncomfortable." I know that's right. Friends with breasts which could eclipse mine several tens of times over have told me so. And had the grooves in their shoulders to prove it. "But the ones I REALLY hate doing . . . " there was a pause here as she clicked a few things on the keyboard in front of her and then gathered together a file of my images from our little photo session, ". . . are the implants. They can't be compressed very much and require two pictures from each angle. And the worst thing is that no matter what, there's something inside the breast which is going to obstruct some view, however small that might be, of some part of the breast, even though we move and press and prod. Very small cancers can be missed that way. That can't be guaranteed. That bothers me." Another sound reason to abstain from my double D daydreams. Case closed on that contemplation, if it wasn't already.

Tech command central.

I must declare that all of the technicians, which would equal three because insurance started covering an annual mammogram when I turned 40, handle the entire imaging session affair with decorum. That strikes me as no small feat, well, except with me maybe, when one considers that their entire job consists of hefting the breasts of strangers onto a tray and then proceeding to pancake the things into a flat unrecognizable blob of tissue, in essence preparing them for their close-up. I snuck a peek at mine right before their mugshot was snapped: in that compressed state, they in NO way resemble anything which could be considered sexy, pert or voluptuous. And for those of you not in the know -- most men, younger ladies without a family history, older women who just haven't had a scan for varied reasons -- typically two shots per breast, one top-to-bottom and one side-to-side, are taken . . . and in a pretty quick succession. You are standing up the entire time. The diagnostic center where I've gone for two years provides a discreet changing room for slipping into the medical cape, "Buttoned to the front, please." I like the cape. I find them to be much cuter, more stylish, and overall far superior in comfort to the standard hospital gown. It's rather funny to note that terms like 'gown' and 'cape' are used to describe clothing which will never see a gala or dance or superhero leotard.

My heroine's cape.

The mutely lit changing room.

They even provide the ol' standard for freshening up.

For some reason, one does perspire a bit in the flattening process.

At the end of my time with the machine and the technician, I received a clean bill of breast health. Good news. For that, I am most grateful. For that, I am more than willing to undergo the ol' breathe-and-squeeze treatment every year for the duration of my life. It's not so bad.

And there's not a stirrup in sight!

(I've included a P.S of pictures. Just because.)