Mistakes I've made: The crochet bikini

It all seemed so innocent at the time. I wanted a slightly sexier bikini to wear over Fourth of July weekend. There was nothing terrible about my old suit-just that the bottoms were kind of matronly and made me feel pear shaped. Not the worst thing in the world, not the best either. So, last week, while surfing through the Urban Outfitters website, I came across a slinky, (but seemingly not totally skimpy) crochet style and I thought, "Now that is the bathing suit for me!" It looked so cute and appealing, in that 70s-lady-in-the-Tropics way. And it was on sale for only $30. How could things possibly go wrong? But then they did.

Things you don't think about before buying a crochet bikini (but from now on you should)

1. It stretches. And it is made of string and the string is the only thing between you and "Hey everyone on the beach, here are my breasts!"
This means that you spend a large part of your day a.) re-tying your top and b.) living in fear
2. It's hot. It's a little like wearing tiny butt and boob sweaters.
3. It collects things. How to explain this? Well, a crochet bikini is basically a lined net. So, say you spill a bit of suntan lotion on yourself and then it gets under the crochet part. It is gone forever. This also occurs with sand, hair, small shells.
4. It takes 15 hours to dry. That is an exaggeration, but not so far off. It's soggy. When you are wearing a crochet bikini, you are rarely unaware that you are wearing a fabric poorly suited to the task at hand. ALSO, when it gets wet, it stretches and basically you exit the ocean in a wet, stretched-out sweater.

As a style purchase, the whole thing is complete sadness for you (and your poor boyfriend who had to hear about the crochet bikini catastrophe the entire weekend).
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