I cleaned out S.'s underwear drawer last weekend. She had undies of all different sizes in there. Some were really small. Some pretty small. And some were just plain worn out.
This weekend we ventured out to buy new ones. I thought she might appreciate not having the little girls briefs that come in a 10 pack. Maybe she'd like something a little snazzier. So I bought her a three pack of some nice, enclosed waist panties. In a size larger that the largest sized ones I'd cleaned out of her drawers (no pun intended) last week. Long story short - they are enormous. I could wear them. Not that I would - they have hearts and stars on them, give me a little credit. I thought they'd maybe shrink down in the wash. A hot water wash and a super hot drying cycle later - and no go. They may in fact be larger than when I put them in. I had her try them on just to be sure - yep, the poor kid looked like Gandhi, minus the shaved head and glasses.
The whole saga reminds me of when I was a child and my mom brought home a couple of packages of Care Bear underwear for my sisters and I. They were not cute. A different Care Bear frolicking on the front of each pair. But my golly they were huge. And I'm not talking just a "little baggy" - nope, we could have saved these for adulthood and pregnancy and still they would have been too big. I blame my father, he was always begging my spendthrift mother to economize. She'd buy a new dress (from Nordstrom I might add) and hide it in the back of her closet. Then, come Sunday, she'd emerge in her new duds and tell Dad that she bought it "ages ago" or "I can't believe you can't remember me wearing this before" and "you never pay any attention to what I wear, I might as well go around in a flour sack!" - until the poor guy would be in a swivet of confusion, questioning his own sanity, and just let the matter drop. It was a brilliant strategy I'll admit.
But back to the panties. I'm sure mom bought them on sale. And thinking, "hey, the girls will love these" bought them immediately, right before she headed over to the shoe department at Meier and Frank. But when she got them home, and we tried them on, there was no denying that these things wouldn't fit us - ever. And they were Granny panty cut, too. Not cute at all. Not like the Days of the Week silky bikinis that we fought over. And they had Care Bears. It wasn't that we were morally or ethically opposed to Care Bears, but who wants to go around all day knowing that you're wearing Grumpy Bear under your school clothes? It may be telling, but still, it does nothing for the morale. Likewise with Cheer Bear. If we were going to be cheerful, fine. But to have the bear on your panties dictating your mood was more than we could bear (or Care Bear).
As I said, I'm sure Mom was thinking that she'd save a little money and get us something nice, but when Dad saw them, I'm sure his thoughts were along the lines of, "wow, that wife of mine has taken savings to a whole new level! Those things are so huge, and my girls are so skinny - we could pack two or three of the girls into EACH PAIR, thereby economizing on hot water to wash the panties, at a base water rate of blah-be-blah-blah, amortorized over the life of the blah-blah-ble-blah . . ." Here he would go into some mathematical bliss, drawing complex equations behind his closed eyelids. Whereby, once finished, he would rush off to see if it was practical to have the twins tie two of their legs together and wear only three shoes for even greater savings.
My sisters and I still laugh about those underwear. Truly. There's nothing like a good underwear joke to make you chuckle.
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