The next day there was quite the commotion during one of the sessions. Women everywhere were talking about what Barry had written in their books. This is when my enormous balloon popped.

      “He said I was a goddess,” one woman shouted in euphoria. “Me, too…me, too…me, too,” fifty more squealed.

      That ended my stalking of Dave Barry.

      Later that evening, however, the Bombecks arrived. As in Erma Bombeck’s family. I’m crazy about Erma. The conference was premiering a public television documentary about her life, and the entire family was seated onstage for the five hundred of us to gawk at and perhaps question after the film.

      First, I’d like to say that her children, Betsy, Andrew and Matthew, are precious and not a bit snooty, nor is her husband, Bill, a kind and quiet man. They stuck around for most of the conference.

      On Saturday, Tim Bete, who is supersane and calm and in charge of everything and who did a splendid job, informed me that since I was the lunch keynote I’d be sitting with the Bombeck family. Had he told me that before he hired me, I’d have NEVER had the nerve to do this gig but would be in a ditch somewhere drinking Mad Dog and foaming at the mouth and nostrils.

      After recovering from a heart attack the moment his words were out, I excused myself to the ladies’ room to either die or pray. I fell on my knees, not caring that a woman muffled a scream when she saw this.

      “Dear God,” I prayed aloud, but not too loud. “Don’t let me mess this up. I’ll cut my sin count in half. I’ll give more to the poor. I won’t complain about having four breasts when some poor women have none. But please, just this once, let things go well, and I won’t bug you about personal favors such as less cellulite or an end to bloating. At least not for an entire week will you hear that selfish stuff from me. Amen.”

      I have to say it couldn’t have gone better, save for the statue of Mary covering her ears and blushing when I told the crowd about my friend Brewster’s near fatal crotch amputation. Only one lady folded her arms and gave me that mean, “I hate you and plan to kill you” stare. No one threw things or booed.

      But I did throw things at them. I had some hot-pink tape measures as a promotional item and hit an attendee so hard in the face she may need a glass eye. I told her how sorry I was and gave her a free book.

      My new friend Laverne, who writes funny senior citizen columns, said, “Whine, whine, whine. It’s not like she doesn’t have an extra eye.” God, I love Laverne.

      The highlight of the event was when Betsy Bombeck, a fun-loving woman, bought two of my books. In fact, that was the highlight of the entire year promoting this first book.

      I guess she bought them because I didn’t take out her left eye.

      She’s smart enough to realize they come in pairs.

       Four Teats to the Wind

       H ere’s the problem: I have four tits.

      Five if you count the time I had a zit the size of a golf ball on the right boob. If not, then four, just like a cow. Mooooo. Though my father said cows will often have an underdeveloped hind teat or, if you want to get techy, a supernumerary and nonfunctioning hint of a teat.

      It didn’t used to be that way. After suckling two pigs (children of my own), I was a normal, though quite saggy, regular-breasted mother of two. Those who read my first book know I broke down and purchased myself a set of fake knockers. It was a procedure my husband said was for bimbos and redneck women, so I’m not sure in which category I fit, but I threw him right into the asshole category for even saying such a thing. You can bet he didn’t get to see them for quite a long spell.

      All I know is that I was glad (at first) I got the old floppers lifted, stuffed, tucked and upgraded. It meant no more trips to Home Depot for duct tape every time I wore a swimsuit.

      What was even more frightening than securing the Lost Girls, a pet name for the old pair (since I used to have to fetch them from various locations), was the areola spreading like Oscar Mayer bologna. A lot of people don’t know the difference, especially men, between a nipple and an areola. I didn’t until I gave birth.

      A big sweet nurse came in and said, “You got to put the areola in that child’s mouth or his ass gone be starvin’ to death.” She was white but had a hip-hop accent and two gold teeth, one formed with a cutout star.

      “It’s in there. See? There’s my nipple in the baby’s mouth.”

      She reared back her head, those teeth blinding with a setting sun. “Girl, that’s yo nipple? That tiny, chewed-off piece a skin? Can’t no baby get a drop of milk lest you stick the whole wad up in their mouths. With a nipple that size, yo baby’s lucky to get his tongue wet, much less a meal. You need to stuff the areola up in there wid it.”

      Nipples. Areolas. I figured it was your basic nipple unit, an all-in-one package. The nurse bent in for a closer inspection of my feeding units.

      “Yo sweet, sore ass may not have a decent nipple, but, whoa, check out dem areolas!”

      “What?” I stared down at my achingly full, sagging boobies.

      “Honey, they big as flapjacks. They looked like satellite dishes wide enough to pick up the Al Jazeera Network.”

      And this is exactly why, upon learning I had this problem, I paid my handsome surgeon an extra thousand bucks to take my Oscar Mayer–sized discs and snip them around the edges as one might a Simplicity pattern until they were the perky size of a cheerleader’s, preferably a cheerleader who hadn’t given birth.

      My husband was livid upon seeing my itty-bitty areolas, wanting his satellite dishes back. But I had made a choice, paid for it and insured the suckers for the next ten years. It wasn’t as if I was planning to get a job as middle-aged stripper at the local VFW or Croaker’s Rest Home. Not any time soon, that is.

      That was three years ago. I figured by now they would have deflated, popped, leaked or sagged. Naturally, I paid the $100 for the warranty, thinking I’d at least own them as long as I did my Whirlpools. I thought one round of sex on the stairs would have done them in for sure. I guess these bags of saline are much harder to destroy than one may believe.

      It’s also a big myth that only hussies, divas, rednecks and insecure narcissists go in for hoo-hoo restoration. Plenty of women like me who resemble National Geographic pinups ask for the workup. I’ve had several mommy friends who got Up Grades because their babies had sucked the life and vitality out of their nack-nackers. I remember my own children pecking at my chest night and day as if I was roadkill, and the kinfolk horrified and asking, “When you gonna wean that child?” To which I responded ever so pleasantly:

      “When she can put four quarters in the Coke machine.”

      Those who are wondering what three years can do to a decent boob job, wonder no more.

      One morning, after gaining a few pounds from my late-night perimenopausal nacho-platter feasts, I realized my restoration had undergone a few unsavory changes, mainly in size and number. Yes, number. You read this correctly.

      First, you’ve got your base units—the smooth, round Mentors my handsome doc wedged underneath the chest muscle, kind of like cracking a giant oyster with a crowbar and sticking in a huge, inflatable pearl. Seeing it on TV, I was horrified that they use what resembles auto-mechanic tools to get the tit bags up under there. No wonder I was black and blue.

      Everything was great for a while until my uterus turned on me once again, deciding it would become my brain and continued ordering me to “eat, eat, eat!” and gain some weight, stimulating my appetite to the point I had nachos nightly and began to see a new set of cleavage atop the implanted and stationary base units.

      The problem was that my original set of natural breast tissue was growing from weight gain and the fibroids within as well as swelling from caffeine intake. Seems they decided to give in to gravity