View from the North 40: Don't buy the blue ones, they're renegades

In an era with an overabundance of women’s undergarments to choose from, I just want white cotton. You know, simple, no-lace, all-natural, plus a bit of elastic around the edges, non-granny-panties, white cotton underwear — those are, my theory holds, no-fail honest unders.

The blues ones, though, are exhibitionists and will betray you every time.

Herein lies the tale of two blue unders.

I have had to wash clothes at the laundromat for about year now — don’t ask, it’s a complicated tale for another day. I have this chore down to a system that includes errand-running, efficient errand-running. Running late, instead, the other day, I was hurrying to get wet clothes and sundry laundered items stuffed back into laundry bags to take home to dry, while talking with a co-worker who happened to be there at the same time, for the first time.

The polite thing would have been to stop and talk. Of course, that would have been the safe and prudent thing, as well, but I was running late so I safetied-up and started with a load of towels, then shirts, my husband’s jeans, then mine … it was in the middle of that load when my co-worker said, “You dropped something.”

Of course, yes, of course. Of course it was a my blue underwear, the pair I had only because it was in the practical 5-pack with the others I wanted, the white cotton ones, the ones waiting quietly in the next washing machine, the ones not flaunting themselves on the floor at my feet.

After my co-worker told me about the errant garment, I said — because I’m into witty banter like this — “Oh, hah! My underwear,” while stooping to scoop them up and stuff them in the bag with the polite laundry.

There was a time, I thought as my co-worker drifted away to someplace less horrifying, when I had better responses for situations like this — almost literally like this because (gah!) the blue ones have a thing for co-workers.

My husband, John, came home from work one day many years ago and handed me a pair of my underwear. Which was weird, yes.

It was “that” pair, that desperation pair bought in some backwater place on a trip in which I somehow came up short on personal privacy protectors. These unders were beauties, some iridescent-blue, fake-satin number with chunky, lace-like elastic, that we both agreed were horrid, but I kept because I’m not one to be wasteful and just throw out a perfectly usable clothing item. Unfortunately, they were indestructible and I had put up with them for years.

They were also, apparently, rebels that had stowed away inside John’s pant leg during the laundry process and made a wild escape for freedom out the bottom of his pant leg in open sight at his work. The women had giggled. He said he had waited until no one was looking and grabbed them up to bring home to me, looking at me like I had sent them on this mission deliberately.

Without a word of debate or discussion we quietly laid that pair of blue satin unders to rest in the garbage can that day.

Unfortunately, I had already agreed to go to a Saturday party which would be attended by all the women who had seen my ugly blue unders make a public run for the open floor.

After John had introduced me to the assembled people and drifted away to leave me facing a wall of knowing smiles, I glanced over my shoulder at my husband who was out of earshot, turned back to the sly smiles and told them, “Don’t look at me. I don’t care what John told you, those were his underwear.”

Some things are so much easier to take when you’re throwing a loved one under the bus, and it would be so much safer if you’d just throw the blue unders in the garbage to begin with.

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