The Chicken Cutlet Bra by Lisa Shimotakahara

First off, I’m a bra expert. I came by my bra expertise unwillingly. I was born flat-chested.

I understand that you, reader person, may not find my subject relatable if you personally have not experienced flat-chestedness – You haven’t walked around in my shoes. You haven’t walked around in my bra.

But my story exceeds the boundaries of boobdom and tips over into glands. And everybody has glands. More on this later.

Not surprisingly, I have tried a plethora of breast-enhancing bras. The cups runneth over in that department.

A sampling: Padded bras, push-up bras, padded push-up bras, underwire bras, underwire padded bras, front closure padded bras, bras with six mm padding, bras with eight mm padding, bras with ten mm padding, and bras that grab the skin from your underarms and try to thrust it forward. None of them were up to the task. None of them looked natural. One protruded like a shelf.

As for plastic surgery, it was never an option. You’ve heard the alarming stories. The implants, even the new kind, can leak. Or, as in the case of my friend Melanie, they can be inserted too high on the chest causing her to look like she’s holding her breath.

But then, from the Twitterverse, a beacon of hope.

#chickencutletbra

I immediately ordered a pair online. I say pair because #chickencutletbra is technically not a bra at all. It is a twinset of pink, gelatinous ovals resembling chicken cutlets. You peel the backing off and stick one on each breast. The stickiness seems like just the right amount of stickiness. Not as sticky as, God forbid, Krazy Glue, but more approaching that of a Band-Aid. 

I was feeling 99% optimistic. But just to make it over the 1% hump, I test drove #chickencutletbra for a week in my apartment. I did jumping jacks, the Highland Fling, downward dog, clutched a porcupine to my chest and hallelujah the cutlets stayed put. They were ready to be worn in public.

So far so good. But soon, sooo not so good.

Picture, if you will, my friends and I sitting on the sunny patio of The Cheesecake Factory. Except it’s beyond sunny. It’s beyond hot. Swampy, if air can be swampy. So there we are, sweaty as Saran-wrapped feet, when I happen to look down. And what do I see? One oval of my chicken cutlet bra on the ground next to my chair.

Reader person, allow me to capture what was said next:

“What the hell is that?

“Ew.”

“Is it raw chicken?”

“It is raw chicken.”

“It’s salmonella chicken!”

And then, my frenemy, Cindy, yelled, “It’s one of those chicken cutlet bras!”

I made a slicing gesture across my neck, giving her the universal sign for shut your piehole, but she didn’t. She said, “You stick the cutlets on your chest. And hello, Chesty Morgan!” My friends looked at the most flat-chested person at the table. I chortled in a carefree manner. “Yes indeed,” (chortle) “that’s my chicken cutlet.”

Once I got home, I chopped the chicken cutlets up into stir-fry chunks and fed them into the garbage disposal. But then, I began to wonder, what if I was to blame. As I said about glands earlier, everybody has them. What if in my case, my sweat glands were bigger than any gland has the right to be. What if I was an industrial sweater? A sweaty outlier? And given all that sweatiness, the cutlet couldn’t stick to my chest.

I googled “when is sweat too much sweat?” Turns out, there is a way to measure one’s perspiration plenitude. With a hyperhidrosis test. It requires attaching small electrodes to your arm pits, causing the pits to perspire. The electrical current is said to be low voltage, producing a “tickling” sensation. Hmm. Electricity and wetness. It brought to mind the ol’ toaster tossed into the bathtub scenario. No electrodes for me.

Instead, I’m going to write the manufacturer on behalf of flat-chested women everywhere. I’ll say, Hey there Inventor of the Chicken Cutlet Bra, I think you’ve designed a Chicken Craplet Bra. Therefore, in the spirit of full disclosure, why not inform us flatsies that your cutlets  aren’t sweatproof? Right there on the package. And make it as big as those skulls on a can of Raid.

Lisa Shimotakahara

Image Wikicommons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saline-filled_breast_implants.jpeg – Saline filled breast implants