Beware of the bra

I have a story for you. This really happened and it happened to me. I usually only hear about these things through some crazy junk email that I promptly send to trash. Soooo last week on Tuesday I worked all day long and then I came home and did the mom thing, picking up, cooking, etc… you know and so it was probably about 9:00 P.M. before I got in the shower. Now I love a hot shower at the end of the day and I mean really really hot and I like to stay in for extended periods of time. ANYWAYS, on this particular night as soon as the hot water touched my bare shoulders I yelped in pain. It really hurt me but the water wasn’t any hotter than usual so I was very confused as to what was going on. It felt like I had a sunburn and you know  how good it feels to stand in a hot shower after being in the sun all day at the beach. NOT good. So as soon as I jumped out of the shower (okay so I just stepped out but I am trying to be interesting) I looked in the mirror and sure enough on both of my shoulders, just about where my bra straps go, there were large red welts or burns. SOOO weird. They hurt so bad. I showed them to my hubby and he said it looked like I had a reaction to something. Ya think?  But to what? Well, the logical thing was to think my bra itself as the burns were only where my bra straps go. The next day I had little blisters on my skin just as if I had burnt myself in the sun. A few days later the burns had scabbed over (I still have them) and itched like crazy. Be patient my story IS going somewhere. I was sharing this strange occurrence with a friend at work (female of course) who thought it equally bizarre. Well guess what? Yesterday she brought in an article she found about Victoria Secret bras. Apparently I am not the only person who has had this reaction. Some lady is suing VS for medical expenses as she had terrible burns all over her chest area. She had her bra tested (you can do that?) and the lab results were astounding. The bra contained formaldehyde in it. FORMALDEHYDE. This is a chemical they use to preserve corpses. In the bra. Hello. So some people are allergic to formaldehyde. Uhh yeah. I would hope so. Did I mention I was wearing a BRAND NEW bra from Victoria’s Secret the day this happened. I might have left that out. Is this crazy stuff or what? Now you know someone who this really happened to – yours truly. My plan of action is simple – I am NOT going to sue V.S. nor am I going to run out and buy Sears bra’s but what I am going to do is make sure I wash the durn things twice before I wear them! All I can say is thank the Lord it wasn’t in my panties.