Writing a weekly column has its challenges, not the least of which being coming up with something to drone on and on about as the calendar reaches deadline day each week.
I can't say I live a particularly adventurous life, so I depend on life's little silly anecdotes to crop up once in awhile, which I then dutifully share with you, my valued readers.
Of course, sometimes, I have no such anecdotes to share. Sometimes, the anecdote well runs dry and I struggle the uber-struggle to come up with a column idea. Sometimes, nothing, and I mean nothing, comes to mind.
Then my mother e-mails me, asking me to buy her lotion and panties, and BOY HOWDY if I don't have a sudden, ready-made column idea.
My parents live in Japan, and my girlfriend and I recently planned a vacation to visit them in Tokyo. My mother, realizing she had an opportunity to get her hands on some hard-to-get American goods, sent me the following e-mail:
"Good to hear that you're excited about your trip. I have some shopping I'd like you to do for me: At the bath shop by Macy's, buy me a tube of creamy body wash and a matching one of the bath lotion—just pick a nice smell; I know you'll avoid the Old Lady scents, even though that suits me. Next, in the lingerie department of Macy's, buy me five pair of Olga panties, style #00873 (look on the tag inside)."
I sat still for awhile in front of my computer, wondering if I had really just read what I thought I had just read. I was okay with the lotion request, I guess. I could see myself buying lotion. Lotion is okay. But, somehow, the mental image of me rifling through an Olga panties display, scrutinizing the tags. . . well, let's just say there were certain discomfort issues when I boiled it all down and realized I'd be buying lotion and panties for my mother. I mean, if I'm going the lotion and panty route, I may as well buy her a box of chocolates and maybe a Barry White CD. The more I thought about it, the more horrified I became.
I replied to my mother, asking her (praying, really) if she was joking with me. I asked if it was her attempt at a late April Fool's prank, or maybe my Dad was playing with me, pretending to be my Mom. To which my Mom responded:
"EXXCCUUUSEEEE MEEEE!!!!! It's not my fault my panties are in bad shape—too many washings. The sad story is that I just didn't bring enough new ones back with me this fall, so I need some more. I could get by with three new ones, but I figured—as long as you were at it—why not go for five. Why do you find this so hard to believe???? Haven't you ever had undies that self-destructed???? As your mother, I happen to know you have had that problem. If you really think you can't handle this assignment, I suppose I can struggle to the end of the year with panties with no elastic drooping down around my navel. Could you live with that kind of guilt?????"
To be perfectly honest, no, I couldn't live with that kind of guilt. There's no more powerful guilt like panty guilt. The mental image of my mother literally "struggling" with her tattered panties struck me as incredibly sad. What kind of son would I be if I couldn't get past my petty insecurities to save her from her pathetic panty situation?
What really drove the panty spike through my heart was the intense punctuation of my mother's e-mail. My mother is an English teacher by profession, so to see all those extra and unnecessary exclamation points and question marks underscored for me just how dire and desperate she had become, shuffling mournfully in her perforated panties.
Then, to really make her panty point, she had the audacity to turn the argument around on me and call attention to my own shameful past of underwear decimation. It occurred to me then, as I remembered back to my youth—and my father and brother in their Swiss-cheese unmentionables—that my entire family tears through underwear like Hulk Hogan with a tee-shirt.
As if thinking about my father had some conjuring quality, I noticed another e-mail in my inbox, this one from my Dad:
"Panties, or socks? What's the difference? She didn't ask you to buy used ones. Glue on a beard and wear dark glasses, go on in, and get 'em. I can't quite remember the word for panty phobia or whether or not there is a cure."
I was still enduring the tormenting mental images of my mother struggling in her destroyed panties, so this fresh assault from my father was akin to diving into the Dead Sea with my body covered in fresh paper cuts. Great piles of shameful, selfish, ungrateful guilt spilled over me like panties from a fallen Victoria's Secret display.
At that point, it wasn't an issue about IF I'd purchase panties, it was an issue of HOW MANY. I know my mother asked for five pairs, but my guilt was such that I was considering 30 or more, while throwing in the chocolates and Barry White CD for good measure.
Panty guilt, man, it's the worst.
UPDATE: As per Amy's and Melanie's suggestion, I did a Google image search on "Olga," as I was told that there are plenty of hot Olgas out there. To be honest, I'm a bit torn. On the one hand, there's this, which makes me happy. But, on the other teabag-filled hand, there's this, which makes me very sad, in a testicles-on-a-rock sort of way.
Ryan says: You'll never believe what Mom asked me to do.
Jody says: ok, I'm being filthy minded here but what?
Ryan says: So, first, she asks me to buy a certain lotion to bring with me to Japan. I'm fine with that.
Ryan says: Then, she writes:
Ryan says: Next, in the lingerie department of
Macy's, buy me five pair of Olga panties, style #00873 (look on the tag
inside), size 7.
Ryan says: Honest to God, I thought it was Dad fucking with me.
Jody says: was she serious?
Ryan says: YES!
Jody says: and OLGA panties to boot...yikes
Ryan says: I KNOW!
Jody says: AND brake open the packaging to make sure its the right style
Ryan says: I wrote back:
Ryan says: Mom, I can't help but feel you're messing with me about that panties
request. Five pair? When you'll be home in a month? What are you
planning on doing? Did you develop some sort of problem you're not
disclosing? Is Dad eating them? What the hell? Dad, did you write that
as a joke, pretending to be Mom? Is this a late April Fool's joke?
Even Mel blanched when I showed her.Seriously, what the hell?
Jody says: I don't know but I have a feeling you will be arrested for sure if you are digging around in panty packaging
Ryan says: Mom wrote back:
Ryan says: EXXCCUUUSEEEE MEEEE!!!!! It's not my fault my panties are in bad shape---too many washings. The sad story is that I just didn't bring enough new ones back with me this fall, so I need some more. I could get by with three new
ones, but I figured--as long as you were at it--why not go for five. Why do
you find this so hard to believe???? Haven't you ever had undies that
self-destructed???? As your mother, I happen to know you have had that
problem.
If you really think you can't handle this assignment, I suppose I can
struggle to the end of the year with panties with no elastic drooping down
around my navel. Could you live with that kind of guilt?????
Ryan says: Then Dad chimed in:
Jody says: gawd...this keeps getting better
Ryan says: Panties, or socks? What's the difference? She didn't ask you to buy
used ones. Glue on a beard and wear dark glasses, go on in, and get 'em. I
can't quite remember the word for panty phobia or whether or not there is a
cure.
Jody says: hahaha
Jody says: why don't you just get her favorite type of menstrual protection while you are at it
Ryan says: I just can't believe this.
Jody says: she really should have asked Mel to do it
Ryan says: She did say Mel could do it, but then Mel brought up a valid point: "Would you buy panties for MY mom?"
Jody says: no, you wouldn't but you would be more inclined to buy them for her DAD...meaning its more of a gender thing
Jody says: ok...bad bad bad analogy
Ryan says: I wouldn't buy underwear for her dad.
Jody says: regardless...what are you going to do?
Ryan says: But, besides that, even if Mel DID buy the panties, she'd be buying OLGA panties, which doesn't strike me as the brand of choice for the 31 year olds of the world.
Jody says: I know...OLGA of all fucking names...why don't they just call them HAG or something else nasty
Ryan says: As I told Mom in a follow-up e-mail, if I'm going to buy five pairs of droopy geezer underoos, I'm getting a column out of this.
Jody says: LOL
Jody says: did she take offense at the word GEEZER
Ryan says: Well, obviously, I didn't word it QUITE like that.
Jody says: you should of just to see what reaction you got.
Ryan says: I knew you'd get a laugh out of all of this.
Ryan says: Mel says I should buy her a bunch of leopard print thongs.
Jody says: well, I'm only laughing because I can just imagine Reg's response if she would have asked him
Jody says: but she knows better than to ask him
Ryan says: Oh, Gawd, he'd commit seppuku.
Jody says: If he had to wander around the women's department looking for OLGA panties...he'd shit twice and die
Ryan says: I didn't even know there was a brand called OLGA panties.
Ryan says: Old Ladies Getting Around.
Jody says: Old Lonely Grannies Association
Ryan says: TMI: hhttp://www.freshpair.com/catalog_section_women_id_7_brand_15.html
Jody says: what makes me laugh about your mom's email is when she said the panties would hang down by her navel...I thought they were supposed to be down there, not up under your breasts
Ryan says: If that's what makes you laugh, you have serious problems.
Ryan says: freshpair.com?
Ryan says: And here I didn't think I'd have a column this week.
Jody says: which style is the one she wants...never mind, don't care to knw
Jody says: well, she's right, they sure aren't hanging BELOW the navel
Ryan says: You don't care to know? I'm the one who will be rifling through the racks to find a size 7 in a particular model.
Jody says: I feel for you
Ryan says: Keeriiist.
Jody says: I guess going on a shopping spree every summer with her for clothes for yourself has some drawbacks
Ryan says: That's just it. . . I don't really have a choice here.
Jody says: no...you dont' which makes it all the more funny
Ryan says: Panty guilt would be unbearable.
Jody says: I realize that she is asking something that a 60+ year old woman thinks is no big deal but to a 31 year old male, she's gotta be a little more aware of what you must be going through
Ryan says: Lotion and panties. Why don't I just buy her a box of chocolates why I'm at it.
Jody says: dinner would be appropriate too
Ryan says: You know, I'm laughing, but I'm also horribly embarrassed here.
Jody says: I know...its hysterical from my end
Ryan says: I KNEW you'd enjoy this.
Jody says: I'm not being snotty...just realizing from a woman's perspective that I'd never ask a male, let alone my son, to buy me underwear
Ryan says: No, I know you're not being snotty. I told you because I knew you'd enjoy it.
Ryan says: And I fully expect you to relay this information to Reg.
Jody says: Oh I will
Jody says: I'm on the phone with him right now and he's giggling uncontrollably
Ryan says: *sigh*
Posted by Ryan at April 4, 2006 09:10 AM | TrackBack"I'm horribly embarrassed buy this. I think I'll go post it on the Internet."
You see Ryan, the Internet was created so that you could post embarrassing stuff about your *friends*, not yourself!
Geez.
Personally, I would see if I could order them online first. Of course, then you get the marketing emails from grannyspanties.com for the rest of time....
Posted by: Strider at April 4, 2006 02:03 PMAlthough my blog annonymity is fairly non-existent, I'm still less embarrassed about blogging about this than I am about actually going out and buying the panties.
I did consider ordering them online. I may still do that.
Posted by: Ryan at April 4, 2006 02:41 PMReminds me of when I was ten, being asked by my mum to go to the chemist and buy haemmorhoid cream for dad.
Posted by: simon at April 5, 2006 05:13 AMOnce got to witness my Father buying pads for my Mother. He reached blindly to his right, and snagged a big package of something and tossed it in the cart, as if furiously trying to avoid the memory of it touching him. He then headed straight for checkout in a desperate bid to finish the job as quickly as possible. He kinda snapped at me when I started to suggest that it wasn't the brand she usually buys.
Posted by: Keith at April 5, 2006 12:36 PMOkay, you made me laugh out loud. Doesn't happen so often these days, so thanks.
Posted by: Pascale Soleil at April 5, 2006 02:16 PMDude, that's one of the funniest things I have ever read in my life. I'm serious. It was also touching in a way. Sounds like you have a great family.
Why don't you print out your original post and take it to the store and let one of the sales ladies ready it before she helps you? I'm absolutely positive she'll see to it that you get what your mom needs and nobody will think anything but the best thoughts.
You made my day, dude. Now, go, and take care of that item. If I had a mom, I'd do it.
Posted by: Chuck at April 5, 2006 07:44 PMPascale, Chuck, thanks for the positive feedback. I thought, while writing this, that it was one of my better posts/columns. I still do.
As an aside, my Dad e-mailed me and said both he and Mom thought this post (and column) was very funny. So, you know. . . *whew*
Simon, learn to spell "hemorrhoid." And don't get them, if you can possibly avoid it.
Keith, I had to buy tampons for my girlfriend once, only once, and I pitched such a fit, she never asked again.
Posted by: Ryan at April 5, 2006 10:02 PMI've never really understood why guys are so squeamish about buying tampons.
I mean, for god's sake, nobody actually thinks YOU'RE going to use them. They don't have cooties or anything either.
In fact, all buying tampons proves is that there's some woman out there you're close enough to that she asked you to buy them. In other words: you stud you.
Posted by: Pascale Soleil at April 6, 2006 01:13 AMRyan> Simon, learn to spell "hemorrhoid."
dictionary.com> Main Entry: hem·or·rhoid
Variant: or chiefly British haem·or·rhoid /'hem-(&-)"roid/
Function: noun
: a mass of dilated veins in swollen tissue at the margin of the anus or nearby within the rectum —usually used in plural; called also piles
Source: Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
So we were both wrong, but you were more wrong than me. Nyah! But yes, I agree with the others - this is certainly one of your best posts to date and made for enjoyable reading. Well done!
Posted by: simon at April 6, 2006 03:28 AMI agree, you should print it out and take it with you, let the saleslady read it, meanwhile, you stand there and look pathetic. You will make the entire sales staffs' day. And then puhleeze tell us how it went. Puhleeze.
Dear God Ryan, I am at home doing a 7 day suspension and haven't had anything to laugh about, but this, this just killed me. My dogs even came to see what the unfamiliar noise was. Thank you thank you thank you. Laughed till I cried I tell you.
so. so. funny.
nice job. and what a good son you are!
perhaps next time you're digging around for a column topic, you'll send your mom an email and ask her a few personal questions....?
and, for the record, every woman *i've* ever met named Olga was *extremely* hot.
Posted by: amy.leblanc at April 6, 2006 02:32 PMListen to Amy. Do a Google image search for Olga.
Posted by: Melanietm at April 6, 2006 02:56 PMI'm with you, Ryan. I don't want to know specifics about any of my mother's underwear (Brand, size, style, color, etc). It's the last vestige of innocence I have and I want to take it to my grave.
Posted by: Rob at April 7, 2006 10:03 AM
Stumble It!
