Forever, Erma

by Erma Bombeck

  “Get hold of yourself, lady, they’re probably clogging up the pump. I’ll take a look.”

  Exactly $12.50 later, the repairman shook his head. “The pump is clean. Tell you what. Why don’t you put the socks in a little bag and—”

  “I have put them in a little bag by twos, and you know what? When I take the little bag out, every snap is in place and still there is one sock missing from every pair. I tell you I can’t go on much longer like this. Not knowing where the next sock will disappear. Having the children go around with one foot bandaged all the time. What’s a mother to do?”

  “For starters, lady, I’d keep the bleach away from my nose. And if that didn’t work, maybe you and your friend could get on the Ed Sullivan Show.”

  I told you they didn’t understand.

  Girdles—May 18, 1970

  This generation must be doing something right. I read in the paper last week where a girdle factory shut down due to lack of sales.

  I regard the obituary of a girdle factory with mixed emotion. It’s like having your mother-in-law move out because you have snakes in your basement. There is something good to be said for girdles. Maybe I’ll remember what it is before I finish this column.

  The problem with girdles is that they are designed under the law of redistribution. They really don’t contain the flab; they merely reappropriate it. For example, when I put on a girdle, three things happen immediately; my stomach goes flat, my chin doubles, and my knees inflate. So I always say, “What does it profiteth a woman to have a flat stomach if her tongue is swollen and discolored?”

  I have had some miserable experiences with girdles. One was with a miracle garment that I bought while carrying one of the children. It was expensive, and rather complicated and came with some rather explicit instructions.

  I read: “Welcome to the Constrictor 747. The Constrictor 747 is mechanically engineered to take inches off your waist and hips. When laced and hooped properly it will perform for 18 hours without adjustment. Before wearing, please familiarize yourself with the two pressure exits located over each kidney. In the unlikely event oxygen is required, the stays will open and automatically eject an oxygen mask. Please extinguish all fire material and place the mask over your face and mouth and breathe normally.”

  The Constrictor 747 was a great disappointment to me. I was wearing it one afternoon when a friend saw me and asked, “When is your baby due?”

  “I had it two weeks ago,” I said, and went home to give the Constrictor 747 a decent burial.

  After that, I stuck with a little cheapie...a model called the Little Nothing Tourniquet. It was reinforced over the tummy, the hips, the rib cage, the legs, the seat and sometimes the ankle. But it did the job. You may have seen it. When I started wearing short skirts, everybody saw it. It cut me just above the knees. One day my daughter said, “Gee, Mom, haven’t you heard? This is the era where you let it all hang out.” And that, my friend, is what is closing girdle factories.

  I promised you I’d remember something good about girdles. I just thought of it. The other day a friend asked me, “When are you expecting?”

  “I had the baby 11 years ago,” I said, and went home to dig out my Little Nothing Tourniquet.

  Creeping Underwear—December 1972

  We have virtually erased bad breath in this country, stamped out dandruff and done away with burning, itchy feet, but we have been unable to conquer one of society’s most dreaded diseases: Creeping Underwear.

  Everyone talks about Creeping Underwear, but no one does anything about it. Technical research has put powdered orange juice on the moon, yet on Earth we are still plagued with pantyhose that won’t stay up, slips that won’t stay down and girdles that should contain a label, HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH.

  To suggest that Creeping Underwear changes a person’s personality is the understatement of the decade. The other night I went to a movie, a fully confident, well-adjusted, stable human being. Two hours later, I was a totally different person.

  My slip had crept to my waistline to form a solid inner tube that added about 15 pounds to my form. My girdle, in a series of slow maneuvers, had reached several plateaus during the evening. First, it slid to my waist. Upon finding this area was already occupied by a slip, it moved upward, cutting my chest in half, and gradually moved upward to where it pinched my neck and caused my head to grow two inches taller.

  The pantyhose were quite another story. They kept sliding down until I realized halfway through the movie that I was sitting on the label in the waistband and that if I dared stand up the crotch would bind my ankles together.

  I tried to adjust these garments in a way so as not to call attention, but every time I bent my elbow two straps slid onto my shoulder and bound my arms like a straitjacket.

  My husband was the first to notice the change in my personality. “What are you doing sitting under the seat in a fetal position?” he asked. “Are you trying to tell me you do not like the movie?”

  “I am suffering from Creeping Underwear,” I whispered.

  “You should have taken a couple of aspirin before you left the house,” he snarled. “Now, get up here and sit up straight in your seat.”

  He didn’t understand. They rarely do. Nearly 98.2 percent of all the victims of Creeping Underwear are women. As I sat there I looked under the seat next to me and saw another woman in a fetal position. “What are you doing down here?” I asked.

  She sighed. “I crossed my leg and was flogged to death by a loose supporter.”

  “Do you think they’ll ever find a cure?” I asked hopelessly.

  “I hope so,” she said. “Your tongue is beginning to swell.”

  Socks Still Lost in Washer—April l, 1973

  I haven’t said anything lately about my washer that eats socks. To tell you the truth, I’ve been afraid to. After my last column on it, several things transpired.

  First a half-crazed woman in Minneapolis sent me 36 single socks left in her washer in the hopes of finding a match in my washer.

  Then an inventor from Cleveland sent me little chains to bind two socks together while being laundered. The chains disappeared after the first rinse.

  And I was approached by a national health organization to pose with my head caught in a washer lid as their poster child.

  I figured if I didn’t shut up about it, they’d take away my cuticle scissors and the strings in my tennis shoes. This is not to say I don’t think about it a lot (as I go through the house humming and strewing rose petals over the living room).

  I think about it every time my husband has to wear a cast on one foot because he has no sock to match the one he is wearing. I think about it when I put six all-black socks in the washer and still end up with one black sock. I think about it when my kids leave the house every morning looking like they are going to a freshman initiation.

  Last week, I looked at my washer and was saying, “Why are you doing this to me?” when my husband came in.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “No one,” I said quickly.

  “You aren’t hearing those little sock voices from the washer again saying ‘Help me!’ are you?”

  I shook my head. As he started to leave, my eye caught something hanging out from under his coat. It looked like the mate to his new gray socks.

  “Where did you get this?” I demanded.

  “Darned if I know,” he said. “I felt something in my underwear the other day, checked it, and it was a tennis sock from the boys. Must be static electricity. The girls in the office picked a knee sock and a footlet off my sweater yesterday.”

  I looked him in the eyes. He had the same look on his face that Charles Boyer had when he was driving Ingrid Bergman crazy in Gaslight.

  “Why?” I asked hysterically. “Why would you let me believe that my socks have been going to that big utility room in the sky? Why would you let me paint anklets on the kids when you’re running around with their socks in your underwear? Why...oh, good grie
f!”

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “This isn’t your new gray sock. I’ve never seen it before.”

  “Want to check in with Minneapolis?” he asked hesitantly.

  Pantskirt in the Rest Room—September 1973

  Dear Mother:

  I am writing you from a rest room in a restaurant just outside the city. While I am drying out, this seems as good a time as any to thank you for the pantskirt you made for me from a new pattern that requires no zipper and a minimum of sewing. What will they think of next?

  When I first received it, I must admit it looked like a slipcover for a pyramid. But after I figured it out, it really looked neat and I decided to wear it out to dinner this evening.

  Shortly after we ordered, I excused myself to come to the powder room. I untied the belt of the pantskirt and voila! the entire garment slid off me and under the door like a coral snake in pursuit.

  As I leaned over to retrieve the skirt, the bodysuit I was wearing gave way, rolled up on me like a broken blind and cut off the air to my windpipe.

  This would have been a humorous situation had I not (a) peeked under the door and seen someone dragging my pantskirt in her heel toward the door, (b) become so hysterical I dropped my contact lens down the commode, and (c) sprung a run in my pantyhose.

  I peeked through the crack in the door and said, “Pardon me, madam, but you are walking on my pantskirt.” The poor woman was terrified. Her eyes searched upward, looking for the voice from nowhere.

  “Where are you, dear?” she asked, holding up the garment and starting to walk away from me.

  “No, no,” I shouted, cracking my head on the purse shelf. “Here. Over here!” She slid it under the door, looked around suspiciously and left.

  Meanwhile, back in the booth, I began to pull myself together. First, I shinnied out of the pantyhose, then coaxed the bodysuit down. I started to assemble the pajamas on me. I snapped them around the waist, took the rest of the material and heaved it between my legs and into the commode, where it proceeded to sink.

  I have been in the rest room for nearly 35 minutes now while a steady stream of tourists have filed by to look at me, a nearly blind person with a cut on her head, hanging limp over the sink while the hand blower is trained on her backside.

  I’ve been thinking, Mother. In the time it took me to come to the ladies’ room, Detroit has turned out 1,372 cars...and they think that’s a big production!

  Coat Hangers—September 18, 1984

  With sexual promiscuity running rampant, I could not believe a letter I received from a woman this week who said she could not get her coat hangers to reproduce.

  “I know how much success you’ve had and wondered how you did it,” she said. “I’ve tried everything from hanging Burt Reynolds on the wall to spraying sexy perfume to hanging a nightie from Frederick’s of Hollywood on a hanger. Nothing. Since you are obviously a sex therapist for inanimate objects, maybe you can tell me your secret. The future of my closet hangs on your answer.”

  Good grief! Didn’t your mother tell you anything?

  Sexually active coat hangers are at their peak when they are in a small closet. The smaller the closet, the better. We once lived in an apartment with a closet so small it couldn’t support a rod...just two nails. Within a week (the shortest gestation in the history of coat hangers) we had 37 of those little suckers.

  Don’t look for fertility among satin-covered hangers or sturdy metal skirt hangers with the clamps. The rich hangers that can afford to produce never do. It’s the lower economic hangers (like the wire ones that bend over double when you put a silk blouse on them) that are bearing.

  The ones that do best in my closet are the ones with no visible means of support, the ones with the top made out of piano wire and the bottom of rolled-up cardboard. I call them one-night stands. They’re totally useless, but who has the heart to throw them out?

  Hangers left in cars do well, especially the ones that take lodging under the brake pedal or hook over the seat belt and flap out the window.

  You have to know that hangers in captivity never reproduce. You know, the ones that are welded to the rod in posh hotels. I don’t know how it works, but I think they’re neutered when they affix them so you can slide them out of the groove, put your jacket on them and fit them back into the slot.

  Some people have tried to trick hangers into reproducing by installing hooks and putting as many as 26 garments on the doorknob. Most coat hangers are too smart for that.

  If you’re looking for a hanger orgy, just open your closet and announce, “I’m moving next week.” You’ll get a population explosion you won’t believe.

  I’ve told you all I know. The rest you’ll have to get from the gutter.

  No Luck with Pantyhose—November 10, 1985

  Every time there is an unpleasant act of personal violation committed upon innocent people in this country, six groups rush forward to shoulder blame for it. Yet every day across this nation, women pull on pantyhose fresh from the package, and before they can say “Give me something for the pain,” a run races from crotch to toe.

  Not only does no one come forward to take responsibility, no one cares. And what do women do? Like a bunch of wimps, we cut our losses.

  I have a drawerful of pantyhose with runs that stop at the knee. I wear these with slacks. In another stack are pairs missing an entire foot. These I wear with boots. In yet another mound are the ones that look like lace curtains. I wear these when I’m around the relatives who said I’d never amount to anything anyway.

  For more than 20 years, the nylon stocking industry has been answerable to no one. You buy a car that does not run, you take it back. You buy a bathing suit that fades, you return it. You buy a chicken you can’t eat, you get your money back.

  All you have to do is to look at that shriveled piece of nylon (with a waistband so small you’d have to force it around a doorknob) to know it has not been tested. I’ve seen car doors tested for endurance and waistbands of men’s underwear that are pulled and tugged to make sure they perform in the marketplace. Where is the guarantee that I will get even one wearing out of a pair of pantyhose?

  Since I work in my home, I go to the office in bare legs every day, but when I travel I take six or seven pairs in the original packages. On the last trip, I lost four in the first week. I get better odds at a nickel machine in Las Vegas.

  As nearly as I can figure, pantyhose fall under acts-of-God provisions that apply when no one can control the outcome, so no one pays. But the only way I can buy that rationale is if my pantyhose drowned during a flood or I left them on the clothesline during a tornado.

  I have never had much luck with socks or hose. For 30 years I battled the case of the missing socks in the washer and dryer, which necessitated my kids wearing a fake cast on one leg and spurred my attempt to launch a New York Sock Exchange, where women from all over the world would send their single socks for a match.

  I don’t know what the answer is. I buy the industrial strength wide load size for a woman 6-foot-10 or over. I wash them by hand and try not to climb stairs or sit when I am wearing them.

  The other day I put on a new pair of tights for aerobics. They cost $6. A large hole erupted at my knee. I am going to wear them until someone steps forward and takes responsibility for the deed. I am not vindictive, but if they are caught, they will be punished. They will be forced to walk in my pantyhose for an entire week.

  Crockpot Sock—March 20, 1990

  For as long as there have been washers and dryers, women have been plagued by the Bermuda Sock Triangle. For every pair of socks put into the laundry, only one is returned.

  In the sixties, I got a grant from the Mental Health Association to find out where all these socks were going. I talked with mothers who put casts on their children’s legs, bought black stockings for everyone in the house—and to one woman who told her husband she was conducting a test to see if his “green” leg was less tired than his �
��navy” one at the end of the day.

  We bounced around a lot of theories. Some thought socks were victims of a great cosmic force that demanded one be sacrificed like a virgin maiden. Others thought lost socks were reincarnated and appeared in your dryer as bras and panties you had never seen before. The defection theory was suggested for “socks who wanted to get out of the pressure of living in Boston.”

  They were just speculations. The only person who had a reasonable solution was a man who bought two dozen pairs of new socks each year, tore them apart and threw out one sock from each pair to save his wife the trouble of losing them.

  Me? I just caved in and told my kids the other sock went to live with Jesus. They seemed to accept that.

  The other day, I received a package from a woman in Plymouth, Maryland. “I know you have given up on the missing socks,” she wrote, “but I just thought you’d be interested to know where one of ours went—one that had been missing a month or two.

  “On Christmas Eve, I was preparing clam chowder in my Crock-pot for company dinner. There was a strange odor in my kitchen all afternoon—not at all Christmasy, like evergreen or bayberry candles, but rather putrid. I knew I wasn’t the world’s best cook, but I wasn’t that bad, either.

  “When it was time to serve dinner, we found a sock half melted between the pot and the crockery. I thought of you that evening and wanted you to have it.”

  A charred-black, brittle piece of fabric fell out of the package. I didn’t want to look at it. I promised myself 15 years ago that if I didn’t stop writing about missing socks, I would end up on the pages of the National Enquirer next to a spaceship that gave birth. But I couldn’t resist. I held the burnt sock up to a light and...here’s the scary part...I have the mate to it.

  I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

  The Restless Car—October 1, 1995