Tropical Depression: A brief history of (my) panties The Early Years From age 10 through 18 my mom would take my sister and me, once a year, to the Vanity Fair outlet in Massachusetts for our annual school shopping. Included in this trip was always a year's supply of panties. Since mom never offered any substantive information on the subject of developing female anatomy, my sister and I were both pretty horrified that she would know anything about our underpants. (we did all the laundry). In our haste to get the shopping done as soon as possible we would generally roll our eyes and shrug at whatever panties the mom picked out for us. Unfortunately these panties were often what my sister and I referred to as "silkies". Horrible nylon briefs in horrible pastel colors or, more often, the regrettable "nude".
I distinctly recall my sister and I sitting on our twin beds and tossing the silkies back and forth, laughing, sometimes wearing them on our heads, maybe dancing around to a Queen record. Up until the time my sister left for college we would make fun of the panties and complain to each other about how much we hated them. Oh, the silkies.
The Dark Ages In the panty Dark Ages the cotton 3-pack of bikinis was all I knew. I would either wear some old ratty pair of those or nothing at all. The 'commando' option was totally acceptable as I was living among the hippies and had to blend in. Also, I lived in the sticks without, to my knowledge, any panty-selling store within my manageable radius of operations. I could've gotten you pot or patchouli in about 45 seconds but not panties. And anyway, what the hell did I know about buying panties? It was 3-pack cotton bikini large for about 6 years there. Pink, blue, yellow. Stars, hearts, stripes. How was I to know about "fit" and "style"?
The Recent Panty Past Several years ago I grew tired of the 3-pack and I decided to make a real effort to pretty up the panty selection in my top drawer. This effort was aided by shopping with friends; namely girls who knew stuff about panties. A whole world of panty selection was opened up to me. Patterns, lace, different sizes, thongs, vented, even the dreaded silky had been updated. My mother had in no way prepared me for this selection. As a novice I made mistakes in my pursuit of panty perfection, but I knew the panty grail awaited me somewhere.
The Panty Present It was around Thanksgiving that I realized I hadn't updated my selection for a while and Something Needed To Be Done ASAP. While I despise the holiday shopping mania, I one day found myself at The Mall so, in a desperate act, I braved (The Crevasse). What luck! A panty sale! And what were these?? Low cut, decent coverage, good cotton with some stretch...oh but the colors! The hideous colors! Blue and green stripes; yellow and orange stripes, hot pink, hot orange, plaid. Since I was desperate and in a rush I just grabbed 4 pairs of whatever all in different sizes (thanks for the skillz mom) among them something called the "ultra low-rise cheeky hipster". Damn if those Cheeky Hipsters aren't the cutest, most comfortable pair of panties I have ever owned.
My holiday wish, right after Peace On Earth, is that when I go back for the post-holiday Smackdown, there are 7 pairs of Cheeky Hipsters in black (medium or small) waiting for me.