I'm calling FIVE times

OK, everybody remember this dress?

I'd bought it for my cousin's wedding in Baltimore.  I had a bit of a problem with it.  Because the dress has a very low cut back whereas my bra strap ran ... not so low.

When I picked up the dress, I walked from one end of the mall to the other, trying to find the appropriate bra.  My only choices were some bizarre straps you attach to the hooks in back of your bra and then cross around your waist -- or something that was just the front half of a bra that would stay on with either adhesive or suction or some space-age polymer or whatever (none of which substances were something I actually wanted to put on my chest).  I didn't buy any of them.  I figured I'd be able to go online and find a backless bra.

Amazingly, I could not.  The only backless bras they've got out there are with the crissy-cross straps or the half-bras.  I searched the internet over and over and over and was really frustrated by the fact I couldn't find a bra that did this.  Surely, I thought, we've got the technology for a low-back bra.

I ended up buying the criss-cross straps.  When I was getting dressed for the wedding, I attached the damn things to my bra as directed.  Sure enough it lowered the straps enough for the back of the bra to not show.  On the other hand, it also pulled the sides of the bra so much that they ballooned out the front of the dress.  I tried it every which way and I ultimately ended up with two choices:  back of bra shows across back of dress or sides of bra show from front of dress.  I went braless and didn't dance at the wedding.

So, imagine my surprise when, tonight, I just happen to leave my TV on American Inventor and I see that one of their inventors has made the damn backless bra I was so desperate for.  It's ingenious.  It's one of those little half-bras, but rather than staying on with some form of glue-like substance (thereby fighting gravity all night), it has real live actual straps that go around your shoulders.  From the front -- looks like a totally normal bra.  From the back -- two little straps going over your shoulders and going back under your armpits.  Perfect.  Beautiful.  She's even made prototypes for all different cup sizes -- including fuller-figured gals.  Sign me up.

There are four judges on the panel.  The three men were questioning the inventor on whether she'd conducted enough market research on whether women would want to buy this bra.  The woman on the panel was not so negative.  Dude -- if you're a woman who has ever tried to buy a backless bra, you want to buy this product.

To my great surprise (perhaps because some of the other inventions kinda blew), they put the bra through to the final three!  It's up to us to vote for the winner.

Now, let's not screw this one up like last time -- when that woman who invented that ladies' room bathroom companion thing didn't win and has been stuck in ABC-has-the-exclusive-rights-to-develop-her-product-but-hasn't-been-developing-it hell.  Dudes -- well, Dudettes -- the women of America need this bra.