Pantyhose.
Goddamned pantyhose.
Pantyhose: the greatest exercise in female futility and blatant masochism know to humankind.
Runners up: mascara, the thigh master, trying to get a man to pick up his dirty laundry
Yes, they're stupid. And pointless. And sometimes, we have to wear them anyway: your office requires it, or decency requires it, or those gorgeous stilletos that you just had to buy even though they only had them a half size down from what you'd normally wear and now you totally need a buffer to help prevent blisters the size of Bruce Willis's big bald head, requires it.
Why I Hate Pantyhose
An Essay by Me
1. You can never find them when you need them. They get balled up and shoved to the back of your underwear drawer. They cling to the inside of the dryer. They sink to the bottom of the hamper and don't get washed right away, and by the time you fish them out they've grown a strangely hypnotic mould that you don't quite trust but you'd swear reminds you of Mickey Rooney.
2. If you happen to find some, I guarantee they're no good anyway. Either they shrank in the wash (and of course you won't know this until you try to yank them up, and you hop around looking like a bloody idiot for a good portion of your morning), or they stretched in the dryer, or they're the wrong colour, or they're full of holes, or you snag a hole as you're putting them on, or something. Either way, if you need pantyhose, you'll be making a trip to the store.
3. Buying pantyhose: possibly the stupidest thing you will ever do in your life. It's misleading because you go there thinking "all I need is a pair of pantyhose" and you go to the underwear section, and there they are, row upon row, hundreds or thousands of packages featuring creepy long-legged women, and you think to yourself "this is so easy!" But then it's not. Because you have to use the chart. You have to figure out your height and your weight, which for some reason are not measured in metric or standard, but by some obscure system we'll call Not Of This World (NOTW for short). And so you plot your NOTW height and weight and somehow come to graph a letter of the alphabet. So let's say you're a C. You need to find a package that says C. For some reason, this store stocks primarily K and X. You get down on your hands and knees, searching for C, and when you finally find it, you see that it may be C, but it's not the right colour! You want beige, but you can't find beige. They have nude, taupe, night, gray, navy, black...oh, here's beige! Oh crap, it's M. C, beige....okay, things are looking good...oh crap, these are sheer. I need opaque. And then there are issues with control tops and reinforced toes, and the percentage of lycra...and before you know it, you've spent 7 hours of your life that you will never get back crawling around the pantyhose department and all you've got to show for it is a pair of pantyhose that already resented having to buy in the first place.
4. So now you're late. You're rushing to get ready. You go to put on your brand new pair of pantyhose, and suddenly, a cold sweat breaks out on your brow. You didn't shave this morning. Normally you could get away with it, but let's face it: if you even look at pantyhose the wrong way, they'll get a nasty run in no time flat. You do not want to tempt fate with stubble. So you shave like a mad woman, knowing that the blood from all the nicks will dry, and the pantyhose will stick into the wound, and your body will surely absorb some nylon, but you're okay with it, because at least you'll get out of the house. But no. It's not meant to be.
5. You get one foot in okay. You try to get the second one in, and you totter a bit, and realize this is a bad idea, so you hop to the bed to sit down for Attempt #2. You're just getting them up past the ankles when you realize that your quick shaving stint in the shower has left you slightly damp, and the pantyhose are stuck to you like the dickens. The dickens! So you peel them off, ever so carefully, and you towel dry so vigorously you slough off an inch or two of skin, but you're a woman, and you know that for beauty, we must sacrifice. Attempt #3 is looking good until your yappy dog comes barreling through the door...
6. Yes, it's true. Pets of all kinds have a 6th sense about pantyhose. If you are wearing some, or trying to wear some, they and their pesky claws will be very curious. Pantyhose do not do well with dogs. Or cats. Or determined canaries. So you have to scurry to get the pets safely on the other side of the door, and in doing so, you work up a sweat. And we already know you can't get pantyhose on if there's moisture, so you need to wait and cool off. You do your makeup, touch up your nails....
7. Oh shit. Have you ever tried to put pantyhose on when your nails were wet? It's quite the sight. You may as well not have hands at all. But still, wet nails are preferable to long, manicured ones. That's just asking for runs! So you either have to get dressed wearing mittens, or you rely solely on your elbows for any kind of manipulation. And elbows, well, they're okay, but they're not so adept. It's almost guaranteed that you will go through 2 or 3 pairs of pantyhose just while trying to get the damned things on (always buy a few at a time) and if you leave the house without a spare pair in your purse, you are inviting the wrath of God, so don't say I didn't warn you.
8. Okay, so let's give you the benefit of the doubt, and say that you actually got a pair on. Good for you! Sadly, they don't fit, but still, it's quite an accomplishment. We know you've already bled, and if you're being honest, you'll admit you cried quite a bit too. We know it's true. And we also know that no matter what, they don't fit. Oh, you can come home with A-Z and none of them will be right. You will buy a size larger so they'll go on easily, and then you'll be pulling them up all night long, and people will point and laugh at the saggy wrinkled bags around your ankles and knees. But that's still preferable to getting a size too small, because then you end up walking like a penguin, paranoid that the crotch of your hosiery is hanging down lower than the hem of your skirt.
9. Personally, I have the hardest time being a woman of "petite" stature. They do not make pantyhose for Shrimps. They certainly claim to, but still I put on a pair, and the elastic band always comes up to my boobs. I could wear the damn things as a unitard for crumb's sake! Now, if all the clothes in my closet are low-rise, but my pantyhose come up to my armpits, what the hell good is that? It's preposterous.
10. But pantyhose woes don't end there. Next you have the problem of footwear. You cannot wear pantyhose and open-toed shoes. Some women do. These women should be shot. You also cannot wear anklets under your pantyhose. They get all bunched up, will surely snag, and you'll look like you belong on the short bus to boot. These women should also be shot.
11. If you sell a product that requires an invention to aid in the application of said product, you are a moron.
12. The worst is yet to come. Eventually, the pantyhose will come off. Sort of. You'll probably have to get help peeling them off because your natural body heat will have convinced the nylon and lycra to become your second skin during the course of the day. This is not good. Especially since many women choose to forgo the panty route when wearing pantyhose (not only is it redundant and uncomfortable, but you feel like a dowdy dunce). But the result of wearing pantyhose next to your skin all day is what I like to call "Clammy Crotch", because I am a refined lady. But you can imagine what ungoodness is entailed in clammy crotch.
13. If you manage to get them off intact, you deserve a reward. I wish I could reward you with the joy of never having to wear nylons again, but that isn't likely to happen. Sorry. At this point though, you have bigger fish to fry, ie, what to do with your soiled pair of pantyhose? You can toss them in the hamper and forget about them, hoping that the sloughed off skin trapped in the fabric, along with the dried blood and other DNA samples from Clammy Crotch, don't form some sort of warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light heat, electricity, etc, which somehow springs forth an entire universe that may or may not look to you kindly. And we already know that throwing them into the washing machine is a bad choice what with the fate of certain death they are likely to meet there. Your only other option is to hand wash them, and then leave them to dry in some dusty corner of your house. This is not cool. This is 2005. I refuse to wash anything by hand, dammit!
14. And so, in closing, I would like to point out that pantyhose are really only useful to one kind of person:
the bank robber. And even then, not always successfully.
Mmm...Droolworthy:
This week's Most Fuckable is courtesy of the randy readers of Kill The Goat...I present to you, Mr. Colin Firth.
He beat out a great gaggle of worthy men (edging out Bill Nye the Science guy by an uncomfortably slim margin) and I would like to postulate that it's the "every man" quality that he has going for him that makes him a panty collector extraordinaire.
Colin Firth, known for roles in The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, Pride and Prejudice, Love Actually (highly recommended), and of course, the BJ series, seems to have retained the appealing "affable bloke" attitude that is rare in celebrities of any type. It takes a special kind of person to make the charming Hugh Grant seem like a schmuck in comparison, but Colin has qualities so sweet and humble about him that you cannot help but fall in love.
There is just something about the shy, quiet, bumbling ones that makes a woman want to know more. No, not just more. It makes you want to rip his clothes off and discover that he doesn't kiss like a nice boy at all. Or is that just me?
No abs of steel or frosted tips; none are necessary. He's just a guy with warm eyes and an engaging smile. Heck, I would even call him winsome, if I knew what it meant. But the fact is, even when he's unforgivably rude, and wearing a reindeer jumper, we like him very much. Just as he is.
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