Thank goodness it's Kevlar

When I was a teenager, bra-burning seemed to be all the rage. I didn't personally participate in it for two reasons. First, I didn't personally wear them, being a guy and all that. Second, burning bras was bad for the environment, and by environment I mean the environment of magazine ads for women's underwear.

There's something about that particular environment that seems to elicit strange copy. As in "bras that do tricks" and now "Thank goodness it fits." I'm not making that last copy up, and unless you are a person of the female persuasion, you probably won't believe it's real. But here's the proof: an image from a catalog (One Hanes Place) and a link.

I have never heard any guy say about his underwear, "thank goodness it fits." At most, it would be "thank goodness I'm wearing it." But with women, it seems, wearing underwear is not enough; it's worthy of an expression of gratitude when it actually fits.

What women really should be expressing gratitude for is that a properly constructed bra, like a bible, can protect them from bullet wounds.

I say this based on a story from the Associated Press describing a woman who received only a minor injury when a bullet that had been fired into the air hit her on the bra strap. (From the fact that someone had fired a bullet into the air, you are correctly inferring that this story took place in Florida.)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A woman watching New Year's Eve fireworks from a picnic table found out that her bra can do more than lift and support: It also slowed a falling bullet.

The .45-caliber bullet struck Debbie Bingham, 46, after someone fired a gun into the air about 20 minutes before midnight. She still needed stitches, but the wound might have been much worse except for the bra strap, police spokesman George Kajtsa said.

Bingham, who was in town from Atlanta, said she is thankful for the undergarment, which she said was "very cheap."

"I'd love to have a couple more of those bras," she said.

Wouldn't we all? I truly hope that the Defense Department is looking into making these very cheap bras standard issue for female military personnel.

UPDATE: Could this be a reason to express gratitude when it fits? In England, they're now stocking store mannequins that are sized to correspond to the surgical enhancement that they think many women have undergone: "Shop mannequins with 40" DD breasts have been selling thick and fast across America in the last year and are could soon be protruding onto on the British High Street." I've read the article three times, and I still can't tell whether it's totally for real.