Beren deMotier copyright May 30

Beren deMotier * writer * artist * human

My Own Thong Song

Today was perhaps my nadir of embarrassment to date. A day so embarrassing it brought back my high school years in all their agonizing glory, a time replete with mortifying sanitary pad incidents, and social missteps that make Bridget Jones seem like Poise Itself.

I am a blushing mess of a mom. Because of my thong underwear.

Nowadays, thong underwear is ubiquitous. But I have been a devotee long before there were panty shields specifically designed for thong users, before there was a “Thong Song”, and before one could routinely see the waist-band of a thong rising above a woman’s low slung pants as she walked along the street.

Yes, it was an innocent time.

But I was not so innocent, which is where the thong underwear came in. It started out as an edgy thing. I was young, I was wild, I had rhythm. So, since I was hanging out with women who were erotic dancers, well, when in Rome… G-strings were de rigueur, hip and hey! No panty lines.

Because who needs panty lines?

But that was back in 1986. And here I am seventeen years, picket fence, Labrador and three kids later, still wearing them, though I’ve gone from the ever-so-irritating lace models to the more modern cotton ones that almost smack of respectability. I was even asking our midwife recently, in the middle of the birth of our third child mind you, whether or not I’d ever be able to wear thong underwear again, because of the dang hemorroids I’d developed during pregnancy.

Beyond expressing surprise that this hadn’t happened with either previous child, she was making no promises. And though she kept her opinion to herself, she was clearly not a member of the “no panty lines at any price” club. She admitted that she has to buy seamless socks or she spends the entire day thinking “sock seam, sock seam”, she is so sensitive. I can only imagine that if she tried thong underwear, all she’d be able to think is “butt crack, butt crack, butt crack” all day long.

But, baby born, three months down the line I’m back to normal, more or less, and this morning I’m running, as usual, to take our eight year old daughter to class, the baby attempting to kick off his blanket with every jolt of the car seat bouncing against my side. There wasn’t even enough to time to whisk him out and carry him sans apparatus. We make it into the classroom just on time, a very important thing not only because one should get one’s child to school on time, but because our children are punctuality nuts and fall apart if ever guilty of a social solecism like tardiness. So Phew, we made it, our daughter doesn’t have to fall apart, and I don’t have to peel her off me like a hastily applied decal.

It is then that the teacher, a nice, mild mannered man who goes by “Alan M.” (which always reminds me of Josie’s boyfriend “the cutest boy in Riverdale” from Archie comics of the seventies) clears his throat, holds up something between two fingers and says vaguely in our direction, “Did you drop this?”

I look up, time stands still, I consider dying on the spot. He is holding up a pair of thong underwear that was clinging statically to the baby’s blanket and dropped on the second grade classroom floor. In a split second I calculate my options. Normally I am an excessively honest person, too honest in fact, thus the frequent high school faux pas. But today I look this gentle soul straight in the eye and blandly reply, “No.”

At this point he begins to realize just what he is holding in his hand. As I turn back to re-buckling the baby in his car seat, adjusting his fresh-out-of-the-dryer blanket or some such nonsense to hide my (I hope) non-crimson face, Alan M. mumbles something about “putting it in a bag back here” and quickly makes off with the offending item.

Will I ever be able to look at him with a straight face again?

There are three upsides to this situation as I see it. First, our daughter was focusing on pulling her homework out of her backpack at the time, so she doesn’t know it was my underwear her beloved teacher was holding up like something for show and tell, so I won’t be hearing about it from her or her older brother for the rest of my life. Second, it is something I can chuckle about in my rocker years from now, and believe me, I’m saving up stories for when I’m more likely to be wearing an adult diaper than a strip of lycra against my booty. And third, that teacher has a story he can dine out on for the rest of his days. Laughter will ring in the teacher’s lounge come lunchtime. And considering how hard they work, and with so little reward, they certainly deserve a laugh. The loss of a thong is a small price to pay.