A Short Note to Certain Women Concerned About the State of my Underpants

A short note to certain women concerned about the state of my underpants--

It's been brought to my attention often in recent months by women both near to me and from afar on the internets that I need to "just get over it, and put on your big girl panties."

I just wanted to let everyone know that yes, I do have big girl panties. Several pairs, as a matter of fact.

I got my very first pair of junior big girl panties (very like a training bra, I suppose) for having divorced parents and growing up in a low-income single-parent family.

I'd estimate that I graduated to my first full on, total ass-coverage big girl panties when I was still a teenager, paying my way through college one part-time job paycheck at a time in exchange for a full load of university classes.

Over my lifetime, I've collected quite a few big girl panties in the drawer, and at middle age I can claim I've been wearing many of them longer than some of you have even walked this earth. Paying bills and cleaning up the messes. Jobs with long hours, low pay, and bad bosses. Mortgage payments. Taxes. Motherhood. Babies who were born. Babies who died before they were born. C-section scars. Post-partum depression. Children with disabilities. Divorce. Deaths of people I loved with my whole heart. Stuff that isn't even anybody's business.

Some of those panties fell to the bottom of the drawer and I don't have to wear' em much anymore. That's a good thing. Some of them just keep coming to the top of the pile, because, well, sometimes you gotta wear 'em till you wear 'em out. Some of these old worn out knickers I'm even proud of, because I know they mean I survived something worthwhile.

So given the fact I have so many, how in the fruit of anyone's loom did anybody think I'd leave the house without any on?

I didn't.

Now, I'm not talking about my underwear in a public place like a blog post just to show off. And definitely not to complain. Because I believe my entire collection of big girl panties is nothing special. My point is that we as women, all women, have 'em, because nobody's ass escapes living a life. I'd guess that my collection of big girl panties looks a lot like many other women's, but I also know that a lot of women's big girl panty wardrobes are different. Some have a lot more pairs, for one thing, and some of those underpants are definitely a lot more uncomfortable or even painful to wear than what I've had to deal with. Some women have big girl panties we wouldn't even guess they own, but they've got 'em, shoved down in a corner of the drawer where they won't be seen if anyone goes snooping. Every woman has big girl panties they bought all on their own, on purpose or by mistake, and they've had a few (or many) given to them that they had to put on whether they liked it or not. Not a single one of us escapes having a drawer of big girl panties, whether they came to us by choice or by chance.

So when approximately a million or so women (and a whole lotta men too) all over the country take the trouble and time out of their busy underwear-folding schedule--WHATEVER kind of underwear that happens to be--to exercise their First Amendment rights "peaceably to assemble, and petition the government for redress of grievances" (That's the foundation garment called the Constitution, y'all), you're gonna tell them it's time to put their big girl panties on? Well bless your heart and thanks for caring. How in the hell did you think they all got dressed that morning? Same as I did. Same as you did. Same as we all did. Big girl panties first. Which is why labeling another woman's experience as childish, at that event or at any other time, just in order to feel validated about the contents of your own and different pile of personal laundry, is very little girl itself. Very grade school pee-pee pants, indeed.

It should go without saying that my big girl panties have been on, sturdy, and hitched way up, this whole time, before anyone decided to make it their business. Unless it's really hot outside, and I'm just out lounging on the back patio. Then I'm probably going commando and drinking bourbon. Which maybe some folks should try sometime, instead of being all uptight about the state of someone else's underwear drawer that they've never seen anyhow.

Good day, ladies.