Men's Panty Hose a Laugh for this Female Wearer

Aside from the plumber’s bill last week, the funniest thing I’ve seen is the advertisement for men’s panty hose.

As one who is marking the days on her calendar until spring and the shedding of panty hose, I fund the idea of men adapting panty hose incredible. But then I laughed when they introduced wigs and it’s I who stays in the cold climes while all the wigmakers go to the Virgin Islands for winter vacations.

Panty hose, along with Friday night suppers, remain the bane of my existence.

Generally I am just about to shake the hand of the senator’s wife or meet Mike Douglas’s cousin from Cleveland for the first time when I look down and see that tell-tale circlet around my ankles.

If I yank at the ankles I get two-inch runners creeping wilding up my legs just as I get to the end of the receiving line.

If I yank at the waist, strange people come up and ask if they can get me something.

By the time I get home, I have two inches of panty hose looped around my ankles like stray bits of rope.

Yes, I know, they come in graduated sizes according to one’s height and weight, and they come in stretch fabrics which are made adaptable to almost everyone’s figure. But, then, I note philosophically, I always have trouble even measuring the right amount of vegetables from the economy freezer pack so how can I make the really big decisions about panty hose?

So I experiment.

By the time they all have runs, I have spent enough to buy a sun lamp and acquire a year-round tan on my legs.

When pant suits jumped into the spotlight last fall I though, wow, great, no one can see the collapsing panty hose, the tell-tale bagginess around the knees.

But, no, they still creep out beneath the cuff of the slack suit and slide gently over the top of my new chunky shoes.

But then I discovered hip-hugger slacks that drag on the floor. By wearing hip-hugger  slacks which drag on the floor no one knows that you are being slowly strangled to death on your panty hose. On the other hand, hi-hugger slacks tend to slide around and leave out two inches of waistline. This is combated by wearing your son’s sweater, which is two sizes too big.

When I went to my first yoga class in this outlandish outfit, the svelte young thins in purple body stockings smiled gently.

“What are all those legs doing hanging in the bathroom? It looks like the late night horror show.” Thus asks the Baron.

“That is $12 worth of panty hose, all of which have runs, the beginning of runs, or serious holes in the feet, which will be runs by next week.”

“Why don’t you just throw them out?”

“I haven’t the courage. Besides, one pair might fit if they shrink or stretch or something.”

Panty hose were perfected, presumably, to make miniskirts more modest. The body stocking was perfected no doubt because many women kept yanking up their panty hose so far they were ending up with veritable body stockings.

There is a little old lady on our block who has been wearing the same shade and type of hose (with the line running up the back) since World War !! ended. Her seams are never crooked; she would rather be seen in a bar than caught with a runner.

Yesterday she was out front cleaning the sidewalks of snow. Had on a cranberry body stocking with a plaid miniskirt and a Norwegian sweater her daughter-in-law had knit. “Warmest thing I’ve had since they stopped making snuggies,” she said, merrily tossing the snow over a three-foot bank. She’s 86 this winter.

Tomorrow I'm going out for one of those purple leotards and let the wrinkles go where they may.

I just noticed two extra inches of panty hose gathering cozily around my right knee, and if I yank on it I know what will happen. It can't be so long until summer and suntans. Has to be soon.

Postscript: Read about the history of pantyhose, courtesy of the Smithsonian.