Life as a 40DDDDDDDDDDD

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"We must, we must,

We must develop our bust.

The bigger the better,

The tighter the sweater,

The boys are depending on us!"

I never chanted this particular schoolyard rhyme, as if I were somehow all too aware of its consequences. Nonetheless, the Breast Fairy waved her wand over my preteen body, and voilà!

By sixth grade, I wore an A-cup bra (Kate Moss is a 34A), and suffered as preteen boys yanked at the back of my bra and let it snap. By eighth grade, I was a C-cup. (Salma Hayek is a 36C.) Now it was male teachers, not just male classmates, who stared at my chest.

By 13, when other girls were buying their first bras, I was already outgrowing mine. Alarmed at my all-too-rapid development, I did some research and learned about Cooper's ligaments, delicate connective tissues that keep breasts perky. Once they break, they're broken forever. I told my Phys. Ed. teacher that I could no longer run, lest I break those precious ligaments and get Cooper's droop. Just like that, I was excused from running—seemingly for the next 40 years.