Lingering Lingerie

This morning, while reading the first chapter of Augusten Burroughs's Magical Thinking, I started to think about my own elementary school. So, of course the thing to pop into my head was my underwear.

When Madeleine was really small, and the funniest things to her were events that involved poop or underwear, I told her a story about the time I was in first grade and caught my red corduroy pants on something at the top of the playground slide during recess. The rip, which started out like a tadpole, very quickly became the size of a bullfrog, and by the time the bell had rung, had grown into a flap which exposed my entire tiny-yellow-flowers-on-white butt.

(It is at this point that Madeleine would begin to find the story so hilarious that she would start to egg me on, reminding me what comes next, tell what happened when you walked home, mom!)

So, I spent the rest of the afternoon somehow hiding my butt. I was too embarrassed to tell my teacher what had happened, so whenever I had to stand up, I made sure to plant my hands firmly on my backside. Miraculously, no one noticed.

Still, I fretted about the walk home. It was only a block and a little bit, but there were so many kids that went the same way, how in the world was I to pull this off with no one becoming the wiser? Thankfully, Mrs. Cohen had a note for us to bring home to our parents, so I plastered mine to my hiney. By the time I walked out the door amid the throngs, my undies were practically flapping in the breeze.

Have you ever tried to walk any distance with your hands glued to your butt? Not only is it hard to keep your balance, it looks funny and actually ends up drawing attention to the very thing you are trying to hide. I found that out when some third grade boys walking in my midst began to get suspicious. They said, “Hey, girl! Why are you holding your note on your ass?” (They may not have said “ass” as third-graders in the 70s, but it is possible.) I didn’t answer and walked faster. Remember, home was only a block away, so how much chance was there for disaster to strike?

One of the boys, a redhead whose name I never knew, decided that snatching the note away would give them the answer they yearned for. So, he did. And the answer was there for every kid who was lucky enough to be walking home from Key School down Moritz at that time. Oh, did they laugh. Oh, did I cry. My little (yes, it was once little) cotton-clad tushy, there for any resident of the southeast side of Oak Park to view at his leisure.

I made it home and ran straight to my mother, for whom it didn’t take long to figure out the news. Even my mother who sewed knew that my red corduroy pants were beyond rescue and promptly threw them away. I remember her actually laughing, but in a comforting way that said she wasn’t mad at me for ruining a perfectly good piece of clothing (I was worried).

So, you know how you have stress dreams about showing up to school in just your underwear? I still do, and every time I dream about me in my underwear, they are white with tiny yellow flowers, size Kid. Madeleine doesn’t beg me to tell that story at every friendly gathering/Bunco night/church service anymore, but I think that’s just because other things eventually became important enough to take up the front of her mind. But shhh, don’t remind her.