Nothing Butt Frustration

Ladies, can we talk about underwear for a moment? Men feel free to jump in on this one too, but I suspect this topic is probably more of a hot button with women. Somebody please tell me why it’s so difficult to find comfortable undergarments, specifically-and pardon me for using the “P” word, panties. After 44 years of walking this earth, I am still struggling to find panties that don’t crawl, creep, bind or pinch. It just shouldn’t be this hard. While a cure for the common cold would be wonderful, frankly, I’d rather someone invent a pair of drawers that are pretty yet comfortable, well fitting and don’t ride up the crack of my butt. (It’s at this point my preacher may be reconsidering the link he has to this blog on his website.)

Underwear is important, except to my friend Nickie but that’s a post for another day. It’s the foundation for the look we present to the public every day, and panties are like shoes. If they’re uncomfortable or ill fitting they can ruin your whole day. Or at least drive you crazy. This is weighing on my mind because I have spent the last six months buying panties that I wished I hadn’t. I buy a new style or brand with great expectations that this, THIS will be THE pair, only to have my hopes dashed by a day of rolling elastic or crawling edges. I just don’t get why this is so hard. One pair is cut too low. Hello belly roll. Another is too high. Wedgie anyone? One pair sags in the seat, and another has elastic so tight that I feel like a stick of sausage when I wear them. Silky, knit fabrics are hot. Cotton is perfect but often creates big fat panty lines. Thongs eliminate the panty line issue but I just can’t go there. In all fairness to Victoria’s Secret, I tried a thong once, and spent the day wondering how badly the inside of my cheeks were going to be chapped by the time I got home. By the way, have you seen the panty liners made for thongs? What’s the point of that I ask? I won’t elaborate so as not to run off the three men who read this website, but really, what IS the point when there isn’t enough fabric to support a piece of absorbable material smaller than a postage stamp? Talk about living on the edge.

Twice in the last twenty years I’ve found a brand of underwear that I liked and was able to walk into the store and pick up my size in that brand, knowing they would fit and I wouldn’t have to give them a second thought. Life was good when Jockey was king in the 80’s and the Hanes low briefs beckoned to me from the shelf of Dillards. But for some reason, the manufacturers of said panties fiddled with their formula and left me adrift in a sea of uncomfortable spandex and cotton, and currently, I am once again a woman without an island.

Perhaps, you’re thinking that it’s just me. That my body is aging and changing. Well, I’m not willing to accept that theory yet, because it doesn’t seem to matter what shape my backside is in. Over the years, I’ve experienced flabby, small, droopy and even flat without being able to find a panty that performs adequately. And all of this is complicated by peer pressure to buy pretty panties. I’ve gotten a little dependent on white cotton. I didn’t think much about it until lately when I mentioned the need for new underwear my husband suggested very sweetly that I might look for “some pretty ones”. Which was really his way of saying, “Geez, Hula, could you try something other than the white six pack from Wal-Mart?”

For months now, I’ve tried just about very brand and style this side of the Mississippi and have gotten nowhere. Frankly, I’m getting a little desperate, so I’m begging the folks who make underwear to gather together some women of all ages, shapes and sizes for a heart to heart talk over some wine and cheesecake squares and maybe some of those little éclair things you get at Sam’s Wholesale Club. Find out what we REALLY want in a pair of panties. Not what you THINK we want or what some men who have watched too much porn think we want. Please put together some underwear that fits our needs and our lifestyle and is on the pretty (not trashy) side, so I can quit fiddling with waistbands and leg holes and get back to worrying about the really important stuff. Like whether or not that rash on my waist is a sign of Lyme disease or just a reaction to the self tanner I’ve been using.