A Heart Felt Thank You to the Woman Wearing Three Triangles

Just in case you’re wondering, the image above is NOT me nor is it anyone I know. None of my friends are up for a side view of their keister. That’s why we’re friends.

I’ve never been a fan of bathing suits, at least not if I have to wear one.

Of course, no one can make you wear a bathing suit, but there are situations where not wearing one draws more attention than stuffing your keister into one and pretending to like it.

Every year I tell myself it’s the year to get over it. What the heck? I’m in my sixth decade of swimsuit season you’d think I’d have let go of swimsuit angst by now.

Since I now live in Southern California, swimsuit season is a tad longer than I was accustomed to back in Ohio. Ohio’s swimsuit season coincides with the official season for wearing white without looking like a clueless dork. It starts with too much beer on Memorial Day weekend and ends with too much beer on Labor Day weekend.

If this rule seems outdated, check with a Baby Boomer or your Grandma for clarification. While I’m a Baby Boomer, and a Grandma, I’ve never understood it either.

In sunny SoCal you can wear white any time you feel like it and swimsuit season starts in January and goes through December. Yep, 12 full months.

Some people think winter here is too cold to don a swimsuit. These are the same people who wear down jackets, scarves, and earmuffs when the temps drop to the 60s.

Being from Ohio, Hubs and I view 60 degree days as shorts weather, although our blood is starting to “thin,” as they say. Hubs’ blood appears to be thinning — not mine. He’s been known to wear a hoodie to walk the dog while I’m wearing a tank top. No thinning blood for me. I’m always hot.

Except when I’m wearing a bathing suit — then “hot” is not exactly the first word that comes to mind.

Thinking back on my ridiculous attempts to make the swimsuit dilemma a bit less dilemma-like, one of my most embarrassing attempts comes to mind.

We were on vacation at a semi-fancy Disneyesque place in Florida. The pool was a destination in its own right, with waterfalls and bubbles everywhere. The best feature was the colored lights giving the impression of rainbows shooting out of oblivious swimmers' butts. It was entertaining.

My current attempt at hiding in plain sight was to wear a pair of boxer-type gym shorts over my suit. The look on dry land was acceptable but not so much in the fancy pool.

The shorts quickly took on an inner tube-like appearance. When I tried to deflate my shorts, the air let loose all right — like a Humpback Whale fart, and of course, the rainbow-colored lights hit me right at that moment. Not pretty.

I looked around, feeling like the biggest rainbow-hued duffus in the pool, and there she was. I have no clue who she was or where she came from. I’m not at all sure what her face looked like. What I saw, along with every adult at the pool, was three strategically placed triangles. That was it. Three triangles and some sort of string holding them together. Sort of.

I realized at that moment that I could be stark naked, letting loose a string of rainbow-hued whale farts, and no one, not a single person, would notice.

Ever since that afternoon, I have a new appreciation for triangles and any woman confident enough to wear them publicly.

I say, let’s be BFFs.

We all need a BFF willing to wear triangles.