A Curse on Thongs

I am once again tardy in posting. I have a pretty good excuse this time. I was visiting my family and friends in the States and didn't get back until July 2nd, the day before our Consulate Fourth of July celebration here in Vladivostok. I'm glad I waited, however, because I didn't know what I wanted to post. Yesterday, fate intervened and gave me an idea.

A curse on the thong! I admit my undies drawer is full of them. Well, not full. They’re so small, I could fit them all into a coffee can. A small coffee can. So, there you are. I wear them. I hate panty lines. When I was 14 or so, Underalls were new, popular and sought after. They were a cross between seamless panties (panties without seams, not what Victoria’s Secret sells – the ones with seams) and pantyhose. (Look up and watch some old Underall commercials for a few laughs.) My friends and I wore our Underalls knowing how much better, more alluring we looked without those ghastly panty lines. That was the 80’s.

Now we have thongs. My cousin refuses to wear thongs. “If I wanted to give myself a wedgy, I’d just reach back there and yank!” She says. I say, I know where my underwear are headed once I start walking, sitting, bending and standing; I’d rather put them there myself, thank you very much. It makes me feel more in charge.

I remember feeling a bit old-fashioned when a young friend (16) of mine came to visit and laundered a bunch of thongs. Almost as put-off as I felt when my mom told me that she’d ordered some thongs from Victoria’s Secret. (It turned out she’d ordered the kind you wear on your feet, but I didn’t find that out soon enough to erase the unbidden images that had formed themselves in my mind. Sorry, Mom.)

So why am I feeling a particular disdain for thongs today? Well, I’ll tell you.

I went down to move laundry from the washer to the dryer. The laundry had managed to knot itself into such a complicated and secure knot that the captain of the Queen Elizabeth II would have been satisfied to leave the old girl at dock, step into a pub and hoist a few knowing she'd still be securely tied up awaiting his return. In the knot were two pairs of my jeans, my hiking pants, Douglas’s dress shirt, a favorite shirt of mine and I don’t remember what else. Maybe that was all. That was enough, brothers and sisters. I couldn’t loosen anything at first try. There were sleeves and cuffs and collars leading in and out as though a giant pinball ball had bounded about, trailing a magician’s handkerchief behind it.

I sighed. I groaned. To my great credit, I did not curse.

I removed the few loose items that didn't get caught up in the knot to get a better look. I removed apx. three socks (there is never an even number of socks, is there?), two pairs of underpants and a t-shirt. There was one shirt of which only the sleeve was tangled. This ought to be easy, I foolishly thought. I leaned over, blocking out what little light got down into the washer, and started feeling for the end of the sleeve with my fingers. I managed to loosen whatever was wrapped around the sleeve (which was now considerably longer than when I put it in the wash) just enough to free it. This took about four minutes.

I was hoping (again, foolishly) that this would loosen everything else. Nope. 

There was something that had stretched around the agitator and had worked its way underneath three out of four of the flipper-like things that stick out from it. The agitator was living up to its name. Whatever was stuck down there seemed to be the impetus of the knot and its attachment to the agitator was the anchor. What was it? It was unrecognizable. Probably something of mine that I love, and, along with the shirt that now had one three-quarter length sleeve and one full-length sleeve, I will now never be able to wear again.

Douglas’s work shirt was the next least attached item. Unfortunately, to free it, I had to thread the bulk of the shirt through a teensy opening I managed to maneuver. My back was starting to hurt. I briefly considered leaving the whole mess for Douglas-this was, after all, his shirt. But as my job is to make his life easier, I rejected that outright.

Twenty minutes later I found out what the mysterious stretched out item was at the (literally and figuratively) bottom of all this. You probably already know. It was one of my thongs. But it was my least favorite pair! The pair I only wear if all the others are dirty. The pair I wear on airplanes because I don’t care. The pair I put on if I’m changing clothes, but not showering. The pair that sticks up over my pants whether or not I’m squatting or bending over. That pair.

Ah, me. As I wrote this, I thought of Irma Bombeck. She used to write a column for the Arizona Republic. She also wrote books, one of which was titled Motherhood, the Second Oldest Profession. She was funny, God rest her. There's something else nostalgic you can look up and enjoy.

Next month, I'll try to be on time and have some pictures to share.