Steppin' Out

~*~
The other day, Meg was telling me that people (in her generation) no longer wear slips. I met this announcement with some incredulity, but she assures me it is so. "How do they keep their dresses or skirts from clinging to them?" They just don't wear them, we are the "weird ones" (once again), she tells me.

The subject has arisen because she informs me that her half-slip elastic is no longer elastic-y, and she needs a new one.

I remember a story Momma told me about one time when she and a friend were walking down the street together. It was in the early 1940's, during the war. There were all kinds of shortages and rationing was going on. One of the things that was in short supply was rubber, so there was no elastic available for clothing items like underwear. Buttons were used as a closure on the waistband of panties, instead.

Momma's friend (I can't recall who it was exactly) suddenly felt, to her horror, her underwear slipping down her legs - the button must have given-way. In what must have been a mortifying situation, she made the split-second decision of - instead of reaching down to pull them back up, in hopes of later securing them, and risking discovery of her predicament on the crowded, busy sidewalk - choosing to "let the chips/(panties) fall where they may", so to speak, then neatly stepping out of and away from them, continuing on down the street as if nothing had happened! How they must have giggled to recall this happening, and how surprising for strangers to see the abandoned panties!

~*~

It has been a little over six weeks since Momma died, but she is always on my mind - so much so that I sometimes question "is she really gone?" Physically, obviously, she is no longer here, but she is such an integral part of my thought process (is it that way for all of my siblings?) that I feel her presence and am comforted by the fact that, as long as I have my memories of her, she will never be truly gone.

Her love and humor stay with me and influence my experiences... with every snap of my panties' (or "outmoded" slip's) elastic waistband.