Sunday, August 28, 2011

Complicated Lives...part 18

I see London I see France…

Underwear, most of us wear underwear on a daily basis. This started sometime around our first or second year of life, and hopefully we change it often. Many times in my youth I was a victim of bad underwear choices. There was this one time I had on red underwear with white pants. I also wore polkadot underwear with white pants. I had even been known to wear day of the week underwear with white pants. In the South the white pants thing was only a problem from I think Easter until Labor Day. Or was that white shoes and a white purse? I'm pretty sure you couldn't wear white after Labor Day at all. I stopped worrying because now I don't wear white at all! My underwear was always clean, if at times inappropriate or embarrassing. There is a deep-rooted fear of being caught in dirty underwear in an emergency situation by paramedics or doctors. I never understood this but I never wanted to embarrass Mama by being caught in dirty underwear so I change mine twice-daily day whether I need to or not. When mama died, I even made sure her underwear was clean before the paramedics came. I owed her at least that much! I mean after all she would've done the same thing for me, right? She was always worried about appearances and I was kind of afraid she'd come back and haunt me if I let her go to the hospital in dirty underwear. I love mama, I miss her, and I hope she understood that I checked her underwear...( also why I'm sharing this now)

Changing clothes in PE was never pleasant, but even worse for children of those who live complicated lives. There was one in every locker room, sometimes two, but rarely more than that. There was one in our locker room but I'm not going to say if it was junior high or high school. For all you know it could've been both and probably was. J

Okay so this person, who shall remain nameless, as always, usually seemed to be wearing the same underwear. We weren't sure so few of us took to watching and comparing dirt levels and or small holes. We weren't entirely sure until this person wore the same day of the week underwear for at least three days. We thought this person came from a fairly decent home; it wasn't until later that I learned this person was responsible for doing their own laundry. It was supposed to teach them responsibility. I'd say it missed that mark entirely, and also failed to teach them much about hygiene. We also learned this person really didn't wash their clothes, because they didn't know how. This person was also quite lazy, and couldn't be bothered to read the detergent information including instructions for clothes washing.

I am hoping that with all the time that's passed this person is regularly changing their underwear, and also washing their clothes. I would rather be boiled in oil I think, than iron my clothes. Okay so maybe that is a little bit strong, but I really don't see the point in ironing. I figure as long as my clothes are clean how straight they are doesn't really matter, Mama probably would not agree. Mama,in still in me the importance of clean underwear and how one could die of embarrassment and possibly bring shame on an entire family name simply by being in an accident in dirty underwear. I am hoping that when I finally die I don't soil myself because I might carry that embarrassment straight to heaven. Complicated lives or complicated underwear?

2 comments:

E. M. Prokop said...

hahaha! This is so funny Vicki! You should make these little 'Complicated Lives' bits into a book! It'd be awesome...I agree with you about ironing...although I do it sometimes, for special occasions....like......job interviews...LOL!..hmmm...actually, it's probably been years since I've seen my iron...my grandmother used to push clean underwear incase of an accident as well, infact, years ago an aunt of mine was hit by a Pepsi truck and she told me later that as she lay under the truck with her right arm pinned under one of the gynormous wheels, one of the thoughts she had was, "Thank god I put on clean underwear this morning." It didn't matter anyways, because, as it turns out, being hit by a Pepsi truck is enough of a jolt to the system that the bladder, and to some degree the bowels, relieve themselves of their contents...it is strange what people think of when they're trapped under a Pepsi truck eh? Anyways, hope you're doing well. Keep up the great stories!

I just can't shut up said...

Eve you always put a smile on my face no matter what my day is doing! I think between the two of us we could write a set of encyclopedias of the odd! Complicated lives has helped me escape a bit and not think too much. I have no idea how to write a book. :)