It's all a cup of hot air

By Sheryl-Lee Kerr

slkx@hotmail.com

JUST when you think they can't possibly invent anything more to do

with underwear, you discover someone has been spending way too much time

making out in cars.

The whisper earlier last month from France was that British clothing

manufacturer, Gossard, had used the principle of car airbags to create a bra

to enhance the female breast.

The Airotic bra comes inclusive with two airbags which can be

inflated to enhance the shape of the breast and at least double its size, an

overseas story informs.

“It is the nicest airbag yet available,” said the head of Gossard

France, Annie-Claude Zizine, at the launch.

I think I speak for women everywhere when I say that one chilling

word: puncture.

Imagine, there you are, on your big date with the person of your

dreams, and a strange hissing sound starts to whistle about in your ear

drums.

Hunting around for a kettle proves fruitless and, as you glance

downwards, you suddenly discover you're sporting one D-cup and a B-cup,

which is nudging closer to A-cup status by the minute. Worse, you suspect

your date may be about to take his eyes off the lemon sorbet and initiate

the dating ritual component, which involves eyeing your cleavage while

pretending he's not.

What to do? Well, I am damned sure you can't stick your head down

your blouse and start mouth to mouth without your date getting a very weird

idea about you (and not a little fascinated).

But perhaps Gossard thought of this and built in a safety device to

counter it? Sure, they're probably like those airline life vests that come

with a dangly mouthpiece for manual inflation and a panic whistle, in case

disaster strikes.

I think a bra puncture would constitute a disaster to women under

any definition of the word. So you'd have all these women running around

blowing on the mouthpiece to re-enhance their airiest of assets, while

alternately blowing a whistle to attract help from the sisterhood.

This, however, would attract large crowds of men and small children, shoving your date out of the way for a better view and calling out helpful comments like: “No wait, the left one's now bigger than the right. No, now the right one's bigger ...”

And huge numbers of bystanders of the male persuasion would start

following women around helpfully offering to “even up” their bra cups for them, prompting even more panicked whistle blowing.

I think we can all see where this is going. Yes, apart from the pluses of small-breasted women bouncing back - literally - from full-frontal vehicle collisions, society as we know it would go down the gurgler faster than a child could say, “Look mummy, can I

go and play on that lady's inflatable magic castle?”

© Sheryl-Lee Kerr & The Advertiser, 03 OCT 2000