THE DELICATE FABRIC OF YOUR MIND

Normally, one of the first things I do upon waking up in the morning is check Facebook. But not today. And I might just forego it for a while. Two people have taken it upon themselves to chastise or chivvy me for having opinions, or even thinking about certain issues.
Everything I say is wrong.
Apparently.

Folks, I'm an adult. And I frankly don't care.

There are more important things than always being cognizant of the ease with which your tender little tail feathers are ruffled. And if you are that quickly irritated, use some ointment.


No, I shall not de-friend them. They are people I like.
But holy handgrenades, Batman, holy handgrenades!
I will not deal with their twisted knickers or hissy fits.


I am fond of my friends. But some of them are frightful noodges.


CONCERNING UNDERWEAR

Twisted knickers? Distressed 'delicates'? Eh?

The word 'knickers', which is used in the English-speaking world for panties, derives from the pseudonym of Washington Irving: Diedrich Knickerbocker. In his day people of Dutch descent were commonly called Knickerbockers, after both the surname and what they wore.
The term was used pejoratively to refer to their breeches, those being baggy items which terminated just below the knees, with an adjustable hem or a buckle, much like the plus-fours worn by dickheads on Scottish golfcourses.

[Plus fours are called thus because they end four inches further down the calf than knickerbockers.]

Eventually the term was applied to bloomers (the ancestor of your mother's grannie panties) because of a similarity of appearance, with unrestricted movements and airiness, and shortened in British slang to 'knickers', probably because most lower-class English people are damned well illiterate and can't pronounce anything longer than two syllables. Which is why words like 'antidisestablishmentarianism' or 'civilization' are commonly shortened to 'bollocks'.

Nowadays it most frequently means the scantamento beloved by most women and perverts, which in the United States is known as a 'brief', though usage extends to bag-like sacks for enclosing enormity, as well as, sarcastically, underpants of any type and for any gender.


I like knickers. Grannie panties, not so much.

This largely has to do with the imagined contents of said garments; nice women wear briefs or French-cuts, humongous cetaceans, firefighters, exmarines, and femmy truck drivers swan about in grannie panties.

Anyone wearing grannie panties is a fright to behold.

Oh, the horror, the horror!

Waterbufallo.


A few days ago I passed a shop on Jackson Street just down from the intersection with Stockton, when I paused. The entire front was open, like many Chinese shops, and display tables edged the entrance. There were lots of pastel colours as well as floral and butterfly patterns, with deep pinks and berry purples, in the softest of cotton fabric.

They sell small women's underclothing.

I assure you, it was lovely.

Utterly magical.

Panties.


This largely has to do with the imagined contents of said garments.


I was reminded of many happy hours pouring over certain chapters in the Sears Roebuck catalogue as a child, years ago. A voyage of profound discovery, and a veritable stimulus to the developing mind.
In some ways I am a very old-fashioned man.


Not a grannie pantie in the bunch.


Or Hello Kitty.

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