On the Subject of Knickers

My darling daughters should be gratified to hear that their mother no longer wears granny panties---those awful, elderly looking undergarments that come all the way up to what is anatomically known as the "waist". After holding out for many years, fashion and availability made me cave. Now said undergarment ends a few modest inches below my bellybutton.[Can't resist---what does an older woman have between her boobs that a younger woman doesn't? I usually forget jokes as soon as I'm done laughing at them, but this one has stayed with me, to the tune of much eye rolling from les hommes. The answer, of course, is a bellybutton, but I digress.] I realise an inch or two is a small concession to fashion, but it keeps me in my comfort zone, no panties peek above the slightly dropped waist of my jeans, and my bottom is covered, which, unless I'm greatly mistaken, is the purpose of panties.

I am morbidly fascinated, when shopping for underthings, by the phenomenon known as a thong. For this few inches of skimpy fabric they want how much? So that I could spend every waking hour twitching and wriggling as though there were ants in my pants? Because there would be fabric, all day, in a place where fabric was never meant to be. Better, if I can make so bold a suggestion, to wear nothing at all.

When I was growing up, as soon as summer departed, my mother bought winter knickers for us. She was a practical woman who loved me, I'm sure, and wanted me to be warm, but she was disturbingly unconcerned about permanent damage to my delicate psyche. Darling daughters [and concerned passersby], granny panties are haute couture compared to those abominations. Not only did they cover the bellybutton, they had legs that plunged almost all the way to the knee. Even in that far distant time they were very uncool. Todds' department store provided them in two luscious colours---Pepto Bismol pink and Mawkish Blue. I don't think my younger sister, the cooler one, ever wore them. No,no, darlings....your auntie wasn't that cool [or wanton]. She merely shoved the offending garments under her mattress, pilferred her summer knickers from the back of the hot press and went about her business. But me? I was a martyr for the cause. If Mum said I had to wear them ,I was unaware of options that didn't involve me freezing my young butt off. My sister has a lovely name, but in Irish [and the nuns always used the Irish versions of our names] it is Siobhan --- yes, exactly like the bald one. She suffered years of torment from her peers,
who would snicker "shove on your knickers, your mother's coming...."

I loved to ride my bike to the other side of town to visit my Auntie Ita. She was not really my aunt, but an elderly friend, who had introduced my parents to one another. She fed me banana and jam sandwiches, and treated me like a grownup and was great fun and I loved her. In Auntie Ita's neighbourhood there were lots of children who went to posher schools than I. I was delighted to be accepted into their group and happily followed them around. One day we ended up in a field where there were lovely, climbable trees. Imagine my surprise when they encouraged me to go first.......what an honour.......until I attained some height, and chortling and guffaws broke out below. Two late I remembered what I was wearing under my billowing skirt.........I squirm still at the humiliation I felt that day. To think that I trusted them and thought well of them. Amazingly, it didn't scar me for life as I undoubtedly thought it would at the time. I still trust people, for the most part, and believe the best of them, unless they give me reason to do otherwise. But , as a precaution, whenever someone invites me to climb a tree with them I always insist that they go first.........and I never, ever wear granny panties any more.......