More Stories from Adolescence

As middle-schoolers went, I was not the most well-endowed. In fact, I was built like an 8-year old boy. In the seventh grade I had been asked to go to the Homecoming Banquet by an older boy, and, since I wouldn't have been old enough to go otherwise, my mother let me go under the condition that I wear my older sister's Homecoming dress from a few years prior. The dress required that I get a strapless bra, and the only one we could find to fit me was extremely padded. I persuaded my mom to let me get it. The bra had detachable straps, so I of course wore it to school every day once Homecoming was over.

One morning, I was sitting in Mrs. Yeager's math class taking a test when I felt something snap. I looked around to see if someone had hit me with something, but when everyone looked as if they were concentrating on the math test, I went back to work. Mrs. Yeager was walking up and down the aisles as we quietly worked. Then, to my horror, she stopped, picked something up off the floor, held it up in the air and announced "Who's is this?" It was my bra strap! The elastic strap had shot across the classroom! I ran over to her, snatched it from her hand, threw it in my backpack, and died the humiliating death of a flat-chested seventh grader.