A Memoir by Malia McCarrick

Anyone who has ever put on pantyhose will tell you that nylons were obviously created by men who hated women. But I sure would like to know who is to blame for the wetsuit. Both men and women have been struggling for decades to get inside these wonders of underwater warmth, but have you ever actually stopped to watch someone put on a wetsuit?

The other day, my wife and I decided to go shopping, a favorite activity, and one we engage in several times a week. Kukana and I both share the shopping gene, which forces us against our will most times to search out the best bargain in any store. So often I’ve found the perfect shoes or shirt, only to be reminded by Kukana that to pay full price is synonymous with heresy. Thankfully, she directs me to the clearance racks and saves me from myself. It was on such a redirection that I found myself wandering about a local store, Marshalls, trying to spot the coveted red clearance tag, when I spotted treasures in the sporting attire aisle: Wetsuits!      

Since I’d recently bought a suit for myself in a dive store, I knew they came in several brands and thicknesses, all of them costing well over a hundred bucks or more. Imagine my surprise then, when I found several name-brand suits sitting in the bargain bin at Marshalls! I did a U-turn with my overflowing cart and headed back to clearance lingerie to find Kukana, who at the time was covered in black teddies and Minions pajama bottoms, all still on hangers and draped over her body. She’d run out of room in her cart.

“Oh my GOD!” I shouted, ramming every other hapless shopper in my path, and losing a few pair of Clarks and Birkenstock sandals along the way. “You’ll never believe what I found! WETSUITS!”

Now, Kukana is not a scuba diver; I am. And the chance of her ever taking a certification course and plunging into the depths to examine a sea turtle up close is about as likely as her walking on the moon. But if there are toys and equipment to be had, she simply cannot stand to be left out. She mumbled something under the ring of bras around her neck that were quickly engulfing her face. Her big blue eyes filled with tears as I showed her suit after suit in varying sizes and colors. The sobbing began when she saw the prices. More than half off! Dabbing her eyes with a Minions pajama pantleg, she pulled herself together, then threw bras into the air, exclaiming, “I’m taking it all! Let’s try them on at home!”  

After single-handedly stimulating the American economy with her purchases, Kukana directed me to carry the bags (yes, I realize I’m being used as a pack mule here) to her BMW convertible.

“All these packages aren’t going to fit in the trunk and in the backseat,” I cautioned. Always having an answer for everything, Kukana assured, “Don’t worry – I’ll just open the top!” and soon we were happily flying down the highway, Kukana safely seat-belted into the driver’s seat and singing along to ABBA on the radio, while I lay sprawled over sixteen bags in both the front and back seats to keep them from becoming airborne.

Upon arriving home, Kukana couldn’t wait to start trying on the suits. I warned her that putting on a wetsuit wasn’t like trying on regular clothes. “It’s sort of like trying to fit your body into a koozie,” I counseled, suggesting that it might be better if she tried on one a night, but she would have none of it.

“Don’t be silly,” she disregarded, systematically hanging each wetsuit over the bridge between master bedroom and the rest of the second floor. Soon, the entire upstairs looked like a dive shop fashion showroom. Shaking my head, I wandered over the bridge and into the office, where I awaited the chaos to come. Sure enough, it came.

“Honey?!?”

Kukana’s voice called to me, the know-it-all tone replaced by a whimper. I walked out the door to find my scantily clad wife trying to waddle towards me, up to her knees in neoprene rubber.

“Oh for heaven’s sakes!” 

We came together in the middle of the bridge.

“It’s like putting on pantyhose,” I explained, “You have to work the suit up from the legs. Pinch and pull.”

Well, this would have been excellent advice had Kukana started the scuba fashion show with a medium or large suit, but she opted to try on the extra small first. At this point, her feet were turning blue, and we hadn’t even gotten the suit up her thighs yet.

“NO!” Kukana wouldn’t hear of it, explaining that somewhere, written in a sacred text, there are rules for the way one must try on clothes. Always start with the smallest first and work your way up.  

“Help me!” she winced. 

The challenge began. I pulled. I pinched. I prodded. I hiked. I whipped Kukana around like a rag doll, tugging the suit with such fervor that we soon found ourselves on the bedroom floor. On a mission now, I vowed to get the suit over her hips. She clung to me for dear life as I struggled in vain to hoist the neoprene over her sweaty skin. 

“I’m so hot!” she gasped.

“Of course you are – that’s the point of the suit!”

We both transformed ourselves into acrobats, first in one unflattering pose, and then another. Anyone looking into the bedroom window would have thought we were either engaged in wild sex acts or murder. I knew we’d finally reached the breaking point when I had a moment of clarity and realized I had lifted Kukana onto her head, her butt in the air, feet off the ground, while I stood behind her and tried to shake her into the suit. All the blood flowed into her face and she couldn’t breathe from laughing. 

“I’m going to wet my pants!” she cried.

“Oh dear God, no!” I immediately let go in a panic, sending Kukana into a lump. Well, I reasoned, it is part of a rite of passage for all divers to initiate their wetsuits by peeing in them, but usually we wait until we’re actually in the water.

Kukana managed to catch her breath and refrain from a personal plumbing incident in the nick of time. I talked her into trying on the small suit rather than the extra small. This time, getting the suit over the legs and hips was easy. Now we had to conquer the breasts. 

“Just push them in!” I cried as I struggled to edge the suit up over her national treasures. 

“They keep bouncing out!” 

Finally, with everything God gave her miraculously tucked in, I zipped the back of the suit up, terrified of the image flashing through my mind of the zipper giving into the pressure and leaving us both deafened in the aftershock of blown-apart neoprene.

“For the love of God don’t move!” I advised. 

Time to try the medium. But first, we had to get the small suit off. We tried peeling, prodding, and pulling. Kukana lay on the floor, her legs in the air, while I gripped the suit and started walking backwards. The suit stretched to its limits when the neoprene suddenly gave, turning me into a human slingshot. I flew out the bedroom door and onto the bridge, the suit in my hands, while Kukana kicked her free legs triumphantly. By this time, sweat poured from both of us, my heart raced, and I felt sure Kukana would need hospitalization from laughing so hard. Bouncing up from the floor, Kukana grabbed the medium wetsuit.

“I’m taking a hot shower!” exclaimed Kukana.

“Listen little missy, this is no time for relaxation!” I scolded, but Kukana explained she would put the medium suit on in the water, hence getting both the suit and herself in a similar wet state. Perhaps this would help the donning process.

“You adjust the water while I start putting it on,” she directed, and stood in the tub with the suit that still had the price tags on. 

“Sweetie, I don’t think you can return it if you take a shower in it. The tags will get wet,” I thought aloud. 

Kukana tore off the tags and tossed them in the trash. “Oh look!” she stated innocently, “The tags have gone missing.”

The addition of water did indeed make the suit go on more smoothly than the others, and I’m pleased to report Kukana now has her very own wetsuit at the low low price of $49.99. I, on the other hand, have a strained back, two broken nails, and post-traumatic stress syndrome from the threat of wetsuit implosion. They say fashion can be torture.

I rest my case.

*   *   *

Malia McCarrick currently lives in Germany, teaching college writing to active-duty US military members, veterans, and their families on bases in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Her music and martial arts pieces have been published in the United States. She holds a Ph.D. in creative writing and is currently working on book-length works of both memoir and fiction.