pantyhose, feminism, and common sense

I've got one of those jobs where "professional dress" translates to: you better be wearing pantyhose. My knee-jerk reaction to that is: the men better be wearing ties.

Consequently, we've got a lot of women wearing that awful support hose from the 70's--you know what I'm talking about--the one where the nude shade makes it look like you've been at the beach all summer, but your arms and face are scary-white. They lead to saggy ankles (tsk tsk).The guys, of course, don't disappoint. There are a few who wear their ties proudly--with short-sleeved shirts. I'm tempted to check their collars to see if the ties are snap ons.

Anyway, I dutifully wear my pantyhose.

This afternoon while in the ladies room doing the ministrations ladies do in those rooms, I managed to poke a finger through my hose. I didn't think it had compromised anything--I was sure it wasn't going to run because more than likely it would just continue to tear along the fault line. I was right.

By the time my staff meeting was over, the little tear was now a gaping hole in my thigh, and all that compressed thigh was trying to escape from the not-so-tiny-anymore hole. Yikes! It was like a sausage trying to escape the casing. Ew, perhaps that's not a good choice of imagery.

I dutifully wore the offending piece of lingerie. While chatting with two of my colleagues back in the office, the conversation made its way to a point where somehow it seemed appropriate to share my mishap. Why? Well, one of the ladies is pregnant, and so that automatically sets the stage for pregnancy war stories.

I told them about my sausage-casing thigh. They looked at me like I was afflicted. I got, in stereo, "Take them off!"

Oh.

Why didn't I think of that?