Mother developed an excellent form of birth control for her daughters. She could have founded “National Wedgie Day” promoting cheap cotton panties because “nobody is supposed to see your underwear anyway.” I don’t know how I would have behaved otherwise, but I wasn’t about to get frisky in those horrible britches. Sometimes Mother was lucky enough to find some so cheap they didn’t have elastic in the legs, just the waist. The fit wasn’t too bad in the morning, but by midmorning, these adventurous undies always managed to crawl up my rear. Back then, before political correctness, you might have heard me cussin’ those Injun Britches that were always creeping up on me. I had no idea I was ahead of my time in my “thongs” and despised them. By then end of the day, they had achieved amazing altitude and my legs felt two inches longer than when I left that morning. They might have even taken my virginity.
Connie and Marilyn had it worse than we did, because after Grandma had a stroke, she was no longer able to do the beautiful dressmaking she was known for. She made it her mission in life to make sure they never ran out of homemade cotton panties. She used whatever fabric was at hand, cotton prints or plaids, not soft knits. Her creations had wide front and back as well as side seams and very narrow crotches, but alas, no elastic in the legs. These were not roomy bloomers made of soft cotton flour sacks she made my mother in her youth. They were torture devices. Grandma didn’t see us for months at a time, so she underestimated their waist sizes, making the fit of the patched up drawers even worse. The tight elastic waist and scratchy seams ensured even more misery. She could make a million if she sold them on an S&M site today. I was not jealous!
What a kick to read. Your post is well written and fun to read even though I have no way to appreciate your experience it was fun to read kind of like reading Patrick McManus hunting stories before I had any interest in hunting.
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Thanks. And I love Patrick McManus!
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What a shame you never had Injun Britches!
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OMG! I was laughing so hard reading this that I could hardly read it out loud to Danny. I literally have tears in my eyes from laughing. During “the war” when rubber was scarce especially for panties, my grandmother and one of her sisters were walking down the street and my grandmother’s panties fell to her feet. She said she just stepped out of then and kept walking.🤗
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I had an uncle who picked up a woman’s panties with a stick and tried to give them back. She hit him with her purse!
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I can see that…
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Don’t you know she wanted to murder him.
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Surprised she didn’t. That’s when you start yelling “Rape”.
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Would have served him right.
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I agree.
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Oh my. What tortuous devices we women have had to endure.
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Reblogged this on carsonrenomysteryseries.com.
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Thanks so much.
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Too hilarious. Almost as bad as wearing fleece bloomers – apricot, shorts-length–but they had elastic in the legs and waist.
I guess you had to make do with what you had. Ha ha ha ha ha.
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Did you have to wear fleece bloomers? There should be awards!
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We had a dry good store with everything. It was soooooo cold where we lived, my mom thought they would help. As well, I sometimes wore flannel lined long pants under my dress, which had to be removed before class. 😀
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I’ve never known that kind of serious cold living in Louisana. Sometimes we get a 20 degree day or two, but we go years without snow. Occasionally, we get an ice-storm and it shuts us down. Nobody here has snow tires. I’ve only known one person to die of exposure. He was drunk and his boat overturned on the lake. He was found dead on his boat one morning. July and August are our hard months. It is very easy to get heat exhaustion or have a heat stroke. We have heat related deaths every summer. The humidity is usually very high here.
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Wow. We have high humidity the past bunch of years where I couldn’t even weed the garden at six in the a.m. Yikes. Who cools you with a lovely palm when you’re wilting? 😀 -D
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Not a problem. By mid July, annual flowers are burned up. I’ll post a picture of my beds now and in August. I have to water like mad to keep perennials alive. Puny ones don’t make it. You can count on Zinnias, moss rose, portulaca, lantana, and marigolds to make it through the heat. Oh yes, daisies, and coneflowers do fine. We don’t stay out between 2 and 4 pm if we can help it and drink water non-stop.
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so…the cotton flour sacks would have been better ? ☺
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By the time I came along, those flour sacks were few and far between. The few Mother had left were precious dishtowels. You know, I’m glad it never occurred to her to make panties out of those paper flour bags. Girls were more easily acquired than flour sacks. We’d have rustled and left a dust of flour every where we went, unless we peed our pants, then we would have stuck like wallpaper paste everywhere we sat.
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Ha…wallpaper paste, never thought of that. ☺
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My mom sewed all of our clothes until we were in high school. She was quite upset that neither my sister nor I inherited the sewing gene. That said, I’m thankful she never tried to sew our underwear. I never liked the tightness of them or elastic around my waist and prefer the hip-hugger hi-cuts that (for some reason) don’t slip or strangulate.
The worst were nylon panties, which I quickly discovered were the culprits that caused yeast infections and UTI’s.
Isn’t it amazing the things we learn along life’s pathway?
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It’s a wonder we don’t all run screaming at the sight of panties today. We’ve survived some torture.
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The things women put up with over the years: corsets, girdles, bras, and the 21st century equivalent of foot binding…stiletto’s.
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crazy women.
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I’ll take my Minnetonka mocs over stiletto’s any day. And an oversized t-shirt is fine. 🙂
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Reblogged this on Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life and commented:
I think we might have all had pairs of these knickers.. something for the girls since these contraptions were never meant to be seen by the boys!! Another super post by Linda Bethea…
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Thanks so much, Sally.
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Loved it Linda.. XXS
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Thank you. That means so much coming from a person I admire so much.
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♥♥♥
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Sounds like misery and pure torture! LOL!
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Scary thought!
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It sounds terrible. I could never understand how anyone could wear a thong unless they enjoyed being miserable. The worst is when the person is hugely overweight. I always tried to hide extra pounds not show them off. 😦 — Suzanne
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Some things just ought not to come in XXL.
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