Brave the Blizzard: Buy the Bikini

Last summer was cold and wet and a dark cloud of writing deadlines hovered directly over my apartment. I was on the road all the fall – Vermont, New York, Providence, Toronto, Sweden, Banff – the last thing I wanted was another trip. But then winter started early and came on heavy and I was so over-worked and under-rested and sick in bed with a head cold that, one fever-addled day, heading south for a holiday suddenly seemed like a good idea.

I'd never been south in winter before. I’d never even been anywhere tropical before. In the commercials, people hardly wear anything when frolicking on tropical beaches. That, my friends, is false advertising. Abandoning winter for warmer climes is a gargantuan undertaking, which requires considerable outfitting. The day after booking two tickets to Cuba we had a big blizzard, big even by Montreal standards. 25cm of snow fell sideways in a few hours. I always figured it would be hot during the apocalypse, but apparently not. In the spirit of the bizarre inversion of heading south for sun in the winter, blowing snow seemed the perfect weather for heading downtown to buy a bikini. I braved the blizzard and the public transportation (those bus drivers are commandos, man, we should send them over to sort out the situation in the middle east). With a mingling of fear and loathing, I walked into the Bikini Village wearing a parka, Sorel snow boots and a toque.

Body-image-wise, it wasn't as depressing as I thought it would be to try on bikinis with hat-head, ultra-white skin and sock-marked shins. Much to my delight I discovered that most bikini tops are really just highly padded bras. Va-rooom. The prices, however, were shocking. 50 bucks for a bikini bottom and then another 65 for the top! Outrageous. They didn't have a single suit in my size. Either that or the bikinis manufacturers are in cahoots with the porn industry. What’s worse, all these overpriced undergarments were inexplicably dripping in bling - beaded tassels hanging from hips, sequined messages blazoned across barely covered asses, bands of metal brandishing brand names encasing spaghetti straps. What the hell? Who wants to lie in the sun with chunks of gleaming metal burning the Calvin Klein logo directly into your skin?

After trying on every single expensive, ill fitting, bling-laden bra in the Bikini Village, my parka, Sorels and toque and I trudged through the underground mall to the Winners for a dip into discount shopping hell. Their bikinis were considerably less glamorously displayed, but they were also less fraught with sequins, beads and tassels. I grabbed colours I liked in a range of sizes that seemed to cover all the, um, bases. I'd like to have a conversation with the person who designed the lighting in the Winners changing rooms, but whatever. The miracle of the discount store florescent light grey tile mean service clothing on floor style of retail is that by swallowing my pride and humanity I could afford to buy two insufficient bikinis for the price of half of one bikini at the Bikini Village – a skimpy one for tanning in, and a second that I could actually walk around in, should the occasion arise. I pity the woman searching for a suit to actually swim in.

Next stop: the drug store. If the florescent lights of Montreal’s underground shopping malls are to be believed, SPF 30 will not be enough.

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