Butterfly: “Pantyhose? What do you need those for?”
Me: “Garlic.”
Butterfly, looking a little as if she’s sure it’s time to start looking for an old folks’ home: “Whaa?”
Me: “I need some sort of hosiery to store my garlic. I’m tired of it sitting around in a basket.”
Butterfly: “Oh. Anyway, pantyhose are weird.”
Me, looking at her like I’m sure I won’t be going into the home alone: “Well geez, what came before was weirder.” She looked at me with a bemused expression. I told her about this thing called a garter belt I had to wear when I was a teen. We had stockings, and they only came up to the thighs where you hooked these things hanging down from the garter belt into the tops of the stockings to hold them up. They were lumpy. They left marks on the backs of your legs from sitting on them. They were ugly, weird and uncomfortable. Pantyhose, I told her, are fantastic by comparison. (I spared her colourful reminiscences about my girdle.)
Butterfly only laughed. So I went on. When I went to school there was a dress code. Girls had to wear skirts and blouses. I wore a garter belt, and apparently was the last one to wear this antiquated garment in my school, just because I didn’t know about pantyhose when they first came out. When the other girls did wear slacks outside school, and obviously had hosiery on their feet, I wondered how they were holding up their stockings underneath, without those telltale lumps on their thighs. Bandaids, I wondered? Had they just taped their stockings to their legs? If my mom knew about pantyhose, she kept quiet about them. And I didn’t hang out with the girly-girls. I mean, they were so.... um.... you know... girly ~ all lacy frills and pinching their cheeks to make them pink. Ew.
I didn’t discover pantyhose until one day I was walking through Kresge’s and saw these “Bas Culotte” with a picture on the thin package that looked like mannequin legs. I sort of screeched to a halt and backed up. Searching the package for the English, I found “pantyhose.” What’s this? You pull them all the way up like long johns and no garter belt needed?? Cooool! After that, discovering knee highs was just a matter of time.
I think I buried the garter belt in the back garden. Deep. I didn’t want Mom coming across it if she decided to put a plant there or something. While I was at it, I put my pad belt with it. (Remember those, ladies?) I had discovered tampons. And later, of course, came sticky backs on those other things. Wow. I mean, innovation applied to women’s products. Coooool!
Well now, wasn’t this an interesting jaunt down Memory Lane? Meanwhile, my garlic is all packed away in the pantyhose Butterfly brought home. I cut the legs off, put in a bulb of garlic and tied a knot, repeating until I had all my bulbs tied up in the hosiery. Then I tied them to a shelf on the side of my kitchen cupboard where they will hang throughout the winter for as long as they last. I just need to cut them under a knot to get hold of a bulb of garlic when I need it. I’ll store my onions out of the garden the same way. Actually wear pantyhose? Not on your life. That’s for girly-girls. For me, pantyhose are for garlic, onions, and polishing my hand-made candles.
