Little Orphan Panties

The other day Cul de Sac Carrie and I were doing our power walk when she pointed to the ground and said, “Oh, look. You lost your panties.”

Yes, there was a pair of pink satin panties right there in the street. A thong I believe. And while I’m pretty sure they didn’t belong to me, this wasn’t my first encounter with abandoned panties.

In the sorority house it happened all the time—panties left on the community bathroom floor. Why was that my problem? Because I was the house manager and apparently unclaimed panties fell under my jurisdiction.

After several futile attempts to stop the careless panty behavior (suggesting, pleading, sometimes directly accusing: “I know those briefs with the snowmen on them are yours, Laura!”), I tried a new tactic. I made the panties do the talking. I left a note on the bathroom floor next to a pair of discarded panties:

“Hello. I am dirty, random panties. I was once somebody’s prize possession. Somebody spent a lot of money on me. But then they just left me here on the bathroom floor to collect dust. It’s humiliating. I don’t know why they won’t just come pick me up and put me in the washing machine. Then I’d be as good as new! Would somebody else please claim me? I’ll do your homework for you!"

Love, Random Panties

While my messages attracted attention (much like my popular “pottie ponders” in the stalls), they didn’t prove helpful in placing the panties with their rightful owner. Eventually, I would have to put on gloves and dispose of the panties myself.

I guess after awhile the person who had left her panties in there was just too embarrassed to claim them. I mean, what if she wore them again and we happened to catch her? But this was before the low-rise jeans craze so that couldn’t have been it.

Now if you’re the one who left your panties in the street, I don’t blame you for not picking them up. They’ve been run-over, ruined by dogs and are basically dundies. But what I’ll never understand is how you lost your panties in the first place.

Were you driving to the laundry mat with the top down on your car? Are they evidence in some sort of scandal so you were discarding them? Or did you walk to the Goodwill and buy panties and then drop them on the way home? Wait, they don’t sell panties at Goodwill, do they? Well if they do maybe I could donate all the orphaned panties that I've found. Then I'd get a tax write off and all those poor panties could go to good homes.