Wednesday, September 15, 2010

A Picture of Dorian P*nties

A few days ago I was putting on my underwear, these bikini-style blue ones with pink edging and little image of a watermelon rind, quarter, half and full on the crotch, and I thought to myself, god, when are these from?

I've been wearing this particular pair of underwear now it seems for years--and yet, they are blessedly stain and skidmark free, they are un-torn and un-holey, and remarkably un-faded. In fact, the little watermelon image is not at all cracked or worn. To boot, my bootie has grown, and shrunk, and grown again and they always seem to fit.

I looked at the tag, and they are by a brand called HUE, which is sold at department stores. I determined that I must have gotten these with my mother, and the last time I went underwear shopping with my mother was when I bought my first bra. It was a totally boring, white Calvin Klein AA stretchy cup (whoo-ey was that back in the day!) and I think I got another one, also CK with rainbow stripes on it, which I fondly nicknamed "retrobra."

INSTANT FLASHBACK ~ I started to remember it well: yes, both bra and panties were acquired on this Mom-instigated shopping trip, a bonafide journey into pre-teen hell, which started at the Pussycat (a bra boutique, in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, whose name was enough for me to look stealthily around before I entered, just to make sure that nobody I knew was nearby) and ended at Kaufmann's (a now closed Pittsburgh-based department store, full of floor saleswomen who were dying to give me a buy-two-get-one free panties deal). I could not lift my eyes out of embarrassment the whole time. After some small dispute ("But I don't need any underwear...[sulk]") I gave in, sold out, and bought the panties.

TWELVE YEARS AND FOUR* CUP SIZES LATER, out of school, on my own, and I'm still wearing those panties!

Indeed, I must have bought more than just panties that day at Kaufmann's. More than an arse covering with appealing colors and images. More than my mother's instant appeasement and self-satisfaction.

These panties are made of something different, unearthly. The fibers must be some combination of kryptonite, cotton candy, and ozone...but there is an added aspect written in the very seams, which never have shown wear, something supernatural--dark, even.

As I continue to age, the panties, they stay young, new (ish), always fitting to my ass, despite it's haphazard fluctuation in volume...staring back at me in the full-length mirror, and prodding at the still-open wound of pre-teen awkwardness and mom bra-shopping dates for your then-non-existent titties. PTSD, anyone?! Shudder...


Ah, well, it's one less thing I have to worry about in the unrelenting desert void of adulthood. And yet, one has to wonder, does a girl have to sell herself to the devil to get a decent pair of panties these days?! They just don't make 'em (awkward memories, and panties) like they used to.


BEHOLD!
(<--interactive link)

(BTW, they are definitely not this wrinkled when they go on, if you were wondering--it's the scanner, and I think it adds to the effect...)

* Minus one when I went off of birth control

3 comments:

Elizabeth said...

I can only hope you scanned those at work!

L said...

yep. and i might just leave them there for the next lucky person!

Addie said...

still got that bra? i can probably wear it.