Trying on swimsuits after long winter can be traumatic

It's that time of year again.

No, not when the baby-green tips of daffodils push up through warm soil. Worse than that. Much worse. It's time to buy a new swimsuit.

"Ugh," said one Naperville woman succinctly. "Online," said her friend.

The last time swimsuit shopping was fun, I was 16. That was also my last bikini.

These days, if you're over 25 and coming off a long, cozy, covered-up winter, a winter that was full of comfort foods and warm clothes, the first spring day that you flash your winter-white legs in shorts is not a cover-girl moment.

After that shock, gathering the will and determination to go swimsuit shopping is a monumental endeavor.

I don't know about you, but when I exit the dressing room after trying on swimsuits, I need counseling.

When our three daughters were tiny, I'd book a sitter mid-week on a slow day at the mall, gird my loins, grit my teeth and head off to get the job done.

Anytime during April and May, the stores are fully stocked with swimwear. With luck, you might catch a pre-season sale. A sale would be good, too, because these days, each piece of a two-piece tankini is more than $50. Yikes.

Forget snagging a bikini off the clearance rack in August like my rail-thin sisters-in-law used to do. "So cute!" they'd gush, holding up what looked like a handkerchief cut into pieces and then stitched back together with string. "And only seven bucks!"

I love a good clearance rack as well as the next person, but forget August swimsuit shopping. What's left on that 75 percent off rack is what exactly .01 percent of the population can wear. And that .01 percent, by the way, is fully comprised of my three sisters-in-law.

But back to April and the cruel lighting in those department store dressing rooms.

This year I lay in wait, watching the newspaper ads, waiting for my favorite department store to start its early sale. When it did, I sprang into action, leaping up from the table after dinner on a Thursday evening to head to the mall.

When my daughters caught wind of where I was going, they jumped in the car, too. I didn't think they'd bother me. They're teens now, I reasoned, not toddlers squirming in strollers. They wouldn't distract me.

On the sales floor, I gathered suit after suit, knowing that most of them, once on me, would not be fit for public display.

The kindly salesclerk, eyeing my pile of merchandise, noted the modest styles. "You're too hard on yourself," she said. "Try one that doesn't have a skirt attached."

Once we were all in the dressing room and the trying trying-on had begun, I discovered why the teens should have stayed home. I'd pop out of a dressing room stall to ask a daughter, "What about this one?" and then "What do you think of this?"

"Ugh!" one said, recoiling involuntarily. Then, remembering her manners, "Um, Mom, no. Not that one. Try again."

Problem was, the next was no better. Or the next. I grew increasingly desperate as the pile of rejects grew. Summer was coming. I needed a swimsuit.

For their part, the girls didn't appreciate my comments about their choices either. "Really cute," I'd say carefully, "but isn't it a little bare? Are you going to be comfortable in that? Maybe the next size up?"

At least the girls were reasonable: They'd try on three suits, pick one and head to the cash register. Then they'd badger me to hurry.

"I have homework!" moaned one as another half hour ticked by. "We have to go now!" It was worse than when they were toddlers, whining and arching in those strollers.

When we left, each teen was clutching a shopping bag. I was empty-handed.

But the next morning, alone, I returned and bought three swimsuits, lickety-split. Never mind that each is so covered up I'll look Amish in them. Job's done for another year.

• Cheryl Stritzel McCarthy is a Naperville mom who hopes to steer clear of dressing rooms for a while. E-mail her at otbfence@hotmail.com.