P,

Although it is always endlessly fascinating to unravel the intricate knots of your existence, I plead with you today to help me and mine.  I face a dilemma which may surely hold the key to my eldest cherub’s future stability.  Will it permanently damage my pre-adolescent son or simply inflict some less lasting harm if I go topless on the beach on our nearly here tropical exodus?  And should he be allowed to peruse the endless array of other breasts in his impressionable state?

It seems, dear P, we have chosen to visit hubby’s dream: a beach with European sensibilities.  Although impossible for me to escape with you, hubby has planned a Christmas extravaganza certain to satisfy his own insatiable appetite for the mother’s breast he never had.  As you were weaned on this sort of very un-American behavior (we prefer our breasts bound and gagged for a more repressed sort of erotica), I ask for your guidance in this most pressing matter.  Do I dare expose myself while frolicking with those who sprang from my womb?  Also worth considering, I think, is what one does with less than perky breasts when vertical on the sand.  It is considered bad form to toss them over one’s shoulder for a more comfortable run to the surf?

I beg you to consider all the ins and outs of the matter before sending a reply.  Is it much worse to expose my eldest son to possible uncomfortable and obvious moments in his speedo or ensure he may never have such a moment by exposing him to mom on the beach au naturel?

Faithfully,

C.

C,

Glad to hear that hubby is at least trying to make amends for nixing your participation in my impending trip to Blighty – I guess the old Jackboot trick does work, after all, if the latent footprint I noticed on his neck the other day is anything to go by.

If hubby really must have his European Vacation, dearest C, the solution would seem to me to book it somewhere within the vicinity of the Baltic or Caspian sea.  Having experienced the joys of Hell (I’m not making this up), a veritable white sand/turquoise paradise off the coast of Poland a few years back, I can assure you that the sight of several hundred babushkas stripping down to their tighty whities will not raise the faintest glimmer of a red flag in your oldest cherub’s Speedos.  As for hubby, whose taste for 200lb grandmas is yet untested, the year-round frigid sea temperatures should quickly deal with any burgeoning problems in this area. 

In the unlikely event that hubby insists on booking this extravaganza himself, and opts for the French-speaking Caribbean, my only suggestion is to call the old man’s bluff and insist on taking the family to one of the many nudist beaches at said resorts.  There the sight of so many shriveled and sagging genitalia on display by seniors who should know better, if only they weren’t French, will serve as a kind of Memento Mori for hubby and your eldest to ponder, in betwixt sightings of beautiful twenty-somethings frolicking in the surf.  And besides, it’s only fair that hubby should have to worry about the display and comportment of his own dangling appendages, also, don’t you think?

Faithfully,

P.