You probably think I’m referring to savoir fare or good looks, maybe a God given talent. No, either you have it or you don’t that flap of fat between the top of your arm and the upper part of your chest. That flap that hangs out over every bra. That unwanted clump that ruins the look of any strapless garment. That piece of unnecessary flesh that has no name. You either have it or you don’t.

I am a petite size four. A woman that has worked out daily for more than thirty five years, and I have it.

It is my Eastern European heritage that has caused me to inherit this sartorial wart. Maybe during the late 19th and early 20th century in the desperate Jewish ghettos of Russia and Poland it was useful for women to have this fat flap. Maybe carrying pails of milk from the barn to the house was made easier by the cushion of this fleshy mass. Maybe it helped to keep them warm in their poorly insulated wooden shacks. But whichever one of my grandmothers first inherited it and passed it on to me, I hate her, forever.

Because of this unnamed bulge there are so many styles of clothing I will not wear. This fatty bulb ensures that I will never resemble a seductive bra model, regardless of how thin I am, or what I do in a vain attempt to conceal my inherited imperfection.

It never goes away. I hate my grandmother for it, I hate my mother for it, and one of my achingly thin, perfectly beautiful daughters hate me for passing it on to her. This is because of you she has told me. It may be that one day any one of my daughters will give birth to sons and the curse will be broken. Ending the bloodline that was preoccupied with strapless, bandeau, spaghetti straps, halters tops…thinking we couldn’t wear those styles.

Have you named this armpit bulb, the protrusion of flesh that has been the bain of your existence since you outgrew your training bra? Or, have you become a woman that has grown to accept imperfection and made that the trait worthy of inheriting.

And this is what I know:

Body Positve Will show you the love.

Spanx Will emphasize the parts you love, and reshape the parts you may not love as much.

Some of the women that were loved in the Jewish ghetto.