Here’s a byzktfrnht
short, fun post from the blog (The Customer Is) Not Always Right, all about a new clerk trying to figure out where to shelve the girls’ underwear he is carrying. Yes, that means he is wandering around the store, in public, girls’ panties in tow.
Yay you posted! But doesn’t it just so perfectly illustrate how men are immediately suspect? She couldn’t even stop and observe – she judged RIGHT THEN – and with her KIDS there! That’s the part that kills me. She was accusing this man of terrible things IN FRONT OF HER CHILDREN.
Good lordy.
Note how the possibility that he might be shopping for his daughter never seemed to cross anyone’s mind: she thinks he’s a pervert, he counters that he just works there.
sigh
As an old philosopher once said, “Person who jumps to conclusion often makes bad landing.”
And being the father of two daughters, I can relate to the possibility of a dad buying little girls’ clothes. One positive practice that I’ve observed in the last few years is the installation of diaper-changing tables in men’s rest rooms.
That’s awesome. Hopefully that woman will learn a thing or two.
she won’t. people like that are beyond redemption.
Ok, that it pretty terrible, but I’m focused more at the moment on how awesome a time waster that website is going to be for me today. Thank you for linking there Lenore.
i suppose single dads of daughters are supposed to let their little girls go commando? or maybe they should buy online so no one sees them touching panties. only wait- if they do that and someone for some reason sees the purchase records and pictures in their internet cache, they’ll end up registered sex offenders for life. ugh!
I’ve read a lot of blogs lately written by moms who are furious about strangers judging their parenting in public. This makes for a nice counterpoint! Maybe we all need to observe more and talk less!
This isn’t necessarily on topic, but tana’s comment has got me thinking. Why do people even wear underwear? What purpose does it really serve? And why do people insist on forcing their kids to wear underwear that isn’t a diaper?
Personally, I never found it to be a comfortable piece of clothing when worn underneath just about any other type of clothing. And even on it’s own it was never terribly comfortable, just kind of necessary under a skirt or nightgown in order to keep from flashing the goods to family and friends when I was little. So I’m pretty sure that if I have a kid and they express a distaste for underwear, I probably won’t make them wear any in most cases.
ip — maybe when the reality of kids’ laundry hits, you’ll feel differently. A kid (or adult) can wear a pair of pants more than once if he wears underwear. Without, not so much.
Depending on the person, you can wear a pair of pants more than once before washing even if you don’t wear underwear. If you don’t sweat much or secrete much in the way of other fluids in your nether regions on a regular basis during the day, then it’s really not that big a deal to just hang the pants back up and wear them again the next week. And even if you do sweat a little or secrete a little, they’re your own fluids so they’re not likely to harm you, the only real problem is if something who’s not bending down and trying to sniff you can smell them after the first wearing. So no, I doubt I’m going to consider the frequency of doing laundry unless I have an overly sweaty kid.
*someone, not something in the second to last sentence of my above post
Back to the topic — this is really just extremely sad. It also makes me think that people are just WAY too paranoid and hyper about the possibility that someone else might have some weird proclivities. What I mean is, if I saw a guy walking around holding girls’ underwear, and it occurred to me that it might be for a weird reason (which it probably wouldn’t), my reaction would be to keep half an eye on him and pretty much nothing else. The idea that if you can form some kind of three-link logical chain to why someone might theoretically be a danger, you should “confront” him, accuse him of something he hasn’t done, and make a scene, is totally alien to me. If I have some actual reason to think someone might pose some kind of threat, I either keep an eye on him or get out of range. If I don’t, I don’t publicly humiliate people for stuff that’s essentially NOMB anyway.
My internet worlds are colliding! I read Not Always Right every day, and immediately thought of FRK when I saw that post. It did bother me that he had to say that he was an employee in order to shut the woman up, like it would be any of her business otherwise.
I know a man who had the police called on him three days ago because he was outside a night with a “distressed” baby and the caller found that suspicious. It was his baby who was cranky and he was taking him for a walk to see if it calmed him down. The baby did calm down even when the police showed up!
I’m sorry, maybe my imagination is just not that vivid, but what possible harm could a man be doing by holding a package of brand new panties? It’s not like he pulled a pair of dirty little-girl undies from his pocket and gave a good long sniff right there in the Walmart– followed by a satisfied sigh… (Ew… maybe my imagination is a little too vivid.)
We make my nieces wear panties so if their pants slip down they don’t moon everybody. And in dresses so they don’t flash everybody every time they flip upside down.
But you know, the real answer to “why do we wear underwear” is that it’s cultural convention. (And while you might not think panties are very comfortable, a lot of little kids think underwear, especially the cool type with pictures on it of Dora or Superman or whoever, is just SO! AWESOME!!!!!)
Thank you, HSmom. Now that’s going to be in my head all day.
HSMom — well, precisely. There’s no harm in it. But that’s what I mean about a three-link logical chain — guy holds panties, guy must be pervert, pervert will hurt my children.
I worry when guy gives my kids definitely creepy looks or starts following us around. I don’t worry when guy has article of clothing in his hands. In neither case do I yell at guy for what I think he might do, with or without my children.
Well with the weather we are having atm it would be somewhat draughty with no undies 🙂
god forbid a father every buy underpants for his daughter.
http://notalwaysright.com/you-can-never-be-too-careful/1662
this is from that same sight its pretty funny. see for yourself why.
Thank You, Keep up the Good work 🙂
Males No Underwear Jeans With Zippers = Potential for pain
Females Skirts/Dresses Social Convention = Panties even with pants
Simple