The Two Foundation Undergarments Story

Fair warning, this is a little long...

When my niece told me that she hadn’t heard the 2 bra story and my sister-in-law said yea, it’s pretty funny,  I thought maybe it’s time to put it in writing. It is a funny story and we laugh about it now all the time, especially poor Karl’s part in it, but at the time it scared me to death.  It’s a good thing we have Grandma Martha (my mom). She helped me to put things into perspective...

I can’t say exactly how long we’d been living with Grandpa when this happened, somewhere around a year.  The bishopric Karl had been serving in in the singles ward had been released. We were now attending the Hobble Creek 1st Ward. 

While living with and helping care for Grandpa was stressful, I don’t remember being stressed that day. It was Sunday, and Karl and I were both speaking in sacrament meeting. The talk was ready and I felt pretty good about it, now I just had to get ready for church. I was getting dressed, but I couldn’t find my bra. I looked all over the place! I finally asked Karl if he’d seen it. He looked at me kind of funny, but said, “No” had I checked the laundry hanging up on the line. (We have a drying clothes line in the basement by the washer and dryer). I did look there and my “other” bra was there, but not the one I was looking for. Since I couldn’t locate the dumb thing anywhere, I finally put on the bra that had been on the clothes line and finished getting ready. Off to church we went and I believe all went well. It was a good day, until I got undressed for bed... That was when I found my bra, I’d had it on all the time! I’d worn 2 bras all day long and didn’t know it. I couldn’t believe that I’d put a 2nd bra over the 1st with absolutely no recognition! That was it, I knew that I’d gone crazy, I’d totally lost it! I called out to Karl and told him what had happened. I remembered that funny look that he had given me that morning and asked “This morning when I asked if you’d seen my bra, did I have one on?” to which he replied “Yes”.  I yelled back, “WHY DIDN”T YOU TELL ME I HAD IT ON?” Now Karl knows me pretty well, he knew he was looking at the equivalent of someone holding a double barrel shotgun, filled with rock salt, with a twitching trigger finger. He knew the rock salt wouldn’t kill him, but it would sting something fierce, so he answered the only way he thought he’d have a chance, honestly... “I thought you knew”, he said simply. He had assumed that for what ever reason, I had been looking for my “other” bra that morning...that was the only thing that made sense to him as I was already wearing one. He’d wondered why, but hadn’t bothered to ask and I hadn’t filled him in.

Well sure I was nuts, I called Grandma Martha, who laughed and assured me I wasn’t insane. Stress can do strange things to your body and mind, she said. She certainly knew what she was talking about having taken care of Granny Own (who had Alzheimer’s) for 5 yrs. We talked for awhile and she got me to laugh, telling me about things that had happened to her while she’d been taking care of her mom, that were stress related. She helped me see that stress can “unbalance” a normally “balanced” body and mind. I did go see a Dr. and I did get some help. We survived and I now have a funny story and a stress meter. At the end of the day, if there is only 1 bra, it couldn’t have been that bad.