If there is one thing I hate worse than shopping for a swimsuit, it’s shopping for underwear. As a large woman, I tend to test the limits of Lycra. But after the washing machine ate yet another antique, sweat-decayed excuse for a bra, I was forced into a shopping expedition.

In the lingerie department of a local department store, a large billboard posted this dire warning: 75% OF WOMEN WEAR THE WRONG BRA SIZE. SEE OUR CERTIFIED FITTER.

Bring it on, I thought. I’ll take the bait. I ran her to ground near the colorful new Pink Sugar and Truly Turquoise racks. Feeling a bit droopy, I was eager to avail myself of the Amazing Lift and Advanced Support Systems touted in the surrounding displays.

With measuring tape in hand and a rather dour expression, she led me warily into the back room. I felt as if I were slinking in for a séance with Madame Rosa on Bragg Boulevard. I didn’t ask to see her “certified fitter” license, but wondered if it was a community college course, or graduate degree?

After a few minutes of her ministrations, she declared me a 36D. Then she looked at the tag of my old dilapidated Playtex 18-hour Made in the Dominican Republic bra, and glared at me like I’d just kicked her dog. “This is a 42B!” she hyperventilated. “How is it possible?”

Clearly, I was among the 75% of women with BFD, or Bra Fit Disorder. Perhaps that’s why, in an effort to control extracurricular activity, I usually wear two bras when I do serious sitting trot on my horse. I use a sports bra on top of the 18-hour version. A sports bra alone doesn’t do it, “uni-boob” just keeps bouncing. Evidently it was time to update my underpinnings.

Historians credit New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacob with the patent on the first modern bra in 1913. She didn’t like the look of a corset, stiffened with wire and whale bones, under her sheer evening dresses.

Corsets were dealt another blow during World War I. The U.S. War Industries Board called on women to stop buying corsets in 1917, freeing up 28,000 tons of metal for the war effort. Evidently the Iraq War isn’t short for metal, because underwires are back with a vengeance.

I looked at Hide-A-Wires, Flex-to-Fit, Gel Comfort Straps, Air Form, Pullovers, T-Back, Double Dry, Minimizers, Tag-free, Pushups, and Custom Shapers. Then I tried the Motion Control, Friction-Free sports bras. And how about the Water Wear? (Yes, water filled!) And half sizes, and bra camisoles.

I was beyond confused. Finally I managed to purchase the latest Champion underwire sports bra, hopefully in the correct size, and stumbled out into the parking lot after wasting a perfectly good day in the nebulous black hole of ladies lingerie.