Why is it That… ’tis the Season to be Without Underwear?

Posted by: raysmithtx Post date: December 27th, 2009

I promise I’m not trying to sound titillating when I tell you I’m not currently wearing any underwear. And if anything can be more pathetic than the visual I’ve just forced you to conjure of me, Postpartum Polly, it may just be the fact that I can’t even blame my condition on a creative alternative to those torturous thong underwear.

Nope. My freewheeling has nothing to do with vanity or a last ditch effort to go “pop star” and everything to do with a season that leaves little time for laundry. In my current ventilated and vulnerable state, there’s only one thing that frightens me more than the outcome of an unfocused zippering of my pants, and it is that the Big Day is a mere twenty days away, and things are bound to get even more hectic around here.

After making my lists and checking them thrice, one thing is clear: doing the laundry should be bumped from Chore #7 to Job One on my to-do list. After all, I wouldn’t want the symptoms of my discomfort to be mistaken for the shifty-eyed behavior of a shoplifter when I finally do make it to the mall. I have enough to do without wasting precious mall hours being questioned by the local rent-a-cop. And as an even greater deterrent, if the interrogation concludes with a search of my being, I’ll be forced to pen a whole new edition of The Mother’s Handbook. The advice I will have to hand down to my children will be far more disturbing than that which my mother shared with me. For, while it may be embarrassing to be caught with dirty underwear, it is surely worse to be caught with none at all.

Since the darned Advent calendar is a daily reminder of just how behind I am, and its countdown is leading me toward my own little blast off, I think I’ll just use my bathing suit as an undergarment until I have two hours to get a load done. I may even wear sunscreen so I can pretend that I’m circling the runway to the Bahamas International Airport, instead of revolving around the parking structure at the mall, stalking all outbound pedestrians carrying packages. Or I could choose to believe, instead, that my sensible swimwear is really a sexy little corset that might just inspire me to hop on the jolly man’s lap and sing him my own breathy rendition of Santa, Baby. At least then all the mothers waiting in line for a photo op with their children could explain, for posterity, the look of horror in their children’s eyes when they’re encouraged to forgo all previous training and go sit on a stranger’s lap.

Once I let Saint Nick know what I really want this year (the same slew of staffers that caters to all of Oprah’s wishes, in case you’re wondering), it will be time to think, once again, of others. Sigh. Unfortunately, for me that means a sensory-overloading stop at the toy store. Before I get there, I will have to detour for a soothing latte and some serious self-talk. For the sake of our family name, I just can’t repeat the horrendous social faux pas I committed there last year.

As I waited in a line more serpentine than any at Disney World, I just couldn’t contain myself. There it was mid-December and there were just two cash registers open for business. It was a scene right out of a Christmas Gone Bad movie, with frowning parents and whining babies demonstrating anything but the holiday spirit of lore. But wouldn’t you know it, even all the frenzy couldn’t drown out the perky Christmas carols.

I managed to keep my Scrooge-like thoughts to myself… until they had the audacity to play “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” The lyrics left me cackling like a woman just shy of all her board game pieces. When my daft display received more attention from my fellow shoppers than the season’s must-have toy displays, I tried to explain myself by shouting “Doesn’t anyone see the irony here?!”

We all know they did, but no one appeared to want to go on record by aligning themselves with the mentally unstable. This, somehow, was particularly true for my daughter. The moment actually had to be recorded in her baby book as the first time I embarrassed her to her very core.

I figure the family is safe this year. Even if I succumb to the temptation to strip off my jeans and try out the greatly discounted, off-season kiddie pools, no one will be too embarrassed. After all, my daughters are at school right now and I am wearing a bathing suit.

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