Boob Job Number Four

She always admired big breasts, thought they were the sexiest thing, but unfortunately didn't have them. So the first chance she got silicon implants. Scar tissue grew around them and they had to be removed. So then she got the saline implants and they were bigger, which was great, but they were too far apart. So then she got another set of even bigger implants. They were so big that they caused ripples, and, besides, one of her new breasts was dented on the side. Hence the need for Boob Job Number Four.

That was the first case I watched on what seemed to be some kind of plastic surgery makeover marathon on The Discovery Channel last night. The four chapters in the Boob Job Odyssey were illustrated with photographs that were blurred slightly so no nipples were visible, which -- I don't know. I suppose we are all a bit insane really. And people can calmly sit and watch these photographs of these grotesque misshapen fake tits, they'll munch on pizza while they watch lumps of fat lifted out of someone's buttock and tossed across the operating theater, but if they see a nipple in a program about breast surgery, their hair catches on fire.

I sat there and thought, it'll end after the next one. But then there would be another case, and the thing is the stories were interesting. This very nice girl with, unfortunately, a 38FF bust. She wanted hers reduced. But that one got me thinking -- what ever happened to those bossy and slightly grim, smartly dressed older ladies who used to work in the lingerie section of department stores? When you were shopping for a bra they'd say, "That's not for you," like it was a command. Then they'd sort of look at you for a moment -- sizing you up hahaha -- and then grab a couple off the rack and order you to go try them on. Because if that woman on that show was a 38 anything I really have no idea what I'm doing when I go shopping for bras. I mean this thing threw my whole bra sizing theory overboard. I'm in a state of deep doubt now.

Then there was the woman whose fiance had died suddenly two years ago. She was 52, and she always thought she was plain but he always said she was beautiful just the way she was, and then he died. The thing is that even though the woman never completely believed him when he said it, and he had been dead for two years, I never doubted for a minute that he meant it. I was fully persuaded that this woman and her fiance had one of those relationships that works, that they really coexisted, had unity and love. And it was so sad that she had lost him. "I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him," she said. So she got a face lift and it made her feel attractive and like she could get back in the game, so to speak. More power to her, I say.

I watched about four of these little dramas and began to think there would be no end to it all. I finally fled from the prospect of the little girl with a gigantic growth on her head.

I know there's a smart way to watch TV but I can't remember what it is. I don't watch it a lot, lately I can barely make it through an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Early last year, when I was unemployed and terrified and seriously homesick for oh heck any place but here, I watched those crime shows, one a night, because they were good for an escape. And there is always a rerun of one of them on somewhere. The other show that always seems to be on in reruns somewhere is Friends. i have never understood the appeal of this show. I have never been able to watch an entire episode, no, I've never been able to watch five minutes of it. I flip the channels and there's the apartment the size of Belgium and there's one or more of the -- Jesus, I don't even know how many of them there are -- pert young white people around whom the universe revolves and I want to throw a brick through the box. It amazes me how little there is to watch on all those channels.

OK so two weekends at the bottom of the TV universe don't make a trend. But if it did it would be a bad trend. I'm not sure why I'm even doing it. It's not like I have the time. It feels a bit like resting and maybe that's what it's about. But because I am a worrier of course I go looking for the darkest explanation: my brain is melting and this is the onset of senility.

I thought of this George Herbert poem (I really did! This is what I do!), "The Forerunners" (Caution: slightly annoying background music, hit the mute button before you go):

The harbingers are come. See, see their mark;
White is their colour, and behold my head.
But must they have my brain? must they dispark
Those sparkling notions, which therein were bred?
Must dulnesse turn me to a clod?

I have one grey hair and I like it. But I would just as soon put off being a clod for a while.