Subourbon Mom

Recently I was in the “library,” thumbing through my Bathroom Book of Facts, when I came upon one that sparked my interest:

“The average American woman has 27 pairs of underwear.”

I thought, that can’t be right. There’s no way we have that many, even if you include Date Night panties, the inevitable Granny Panties, and the “Hell no, I’m not wearing those. I don’t care if you got them in Vegas.” Since I like to do research, I decided to

1)   survey my own stash of underwear;

2)   survey how many my friends have; and

3)   see if there’s a difference in the number men and women have, since the book didn’t mention it.

Surprise! I have exactly 27. Nice to know I’m perfectly average. But when I counted up the three categories, I was surprised to find I only have 8 cotton everyday Jockeys, and 2 Granny Panties; but, I have 17 Date Night pairs (I’d already gotten rid of the “Hell No” panties years ago). Very strange (and depressing) since I pretty much only wear the cotton Jockeys every day.

Taking the advice of many women’s magazines, I made a decision to try and wear a Date Night pair every other day and see if I felt sexier, even though nobody else would know. (I didn’t say anything to Hubby, since I knew he’d never leave me alone if he knew what I was wearing). The result? I didn’t really feel sexier, since I instantly forgot about them unless they started crawling up, which they inevitably did. Polyester and Lycra are not my friend. (Side note: The Hanky Panky thongs are still the only ones I will ever wear, and they didn’t crawl up, since they were already there.)

When I asked my friends about their supply, I learned four things:

1)   most of my friends are around the 25-30 mark—I like to think of this as a sign of optimism, unless the Granny Panty pairs are outnumbering the Date Night Pairs;

2)   the younger the women, the more they had (teens-25 had pairs numbering in the 40’s)—I attribute this to the number of times they change clothes in a day;

3)   men have significantly fewer pairs—also attributed to the number of times they change in a day, and the fact below;

4)   men and women categorize their underwear very differently.

Apparently, most men only have about a dozen, no matter what their age or athletic/work habits. And they categorize them into Regular and Exercise groups. No mention of how they want to look in front of the ladies…hmmmm…no Date Night pairs, fellas? Just a shave and some cologne and you’re all set? Well, at least you’re not being presumptuous.

So, I’ll continue to wear the Date Night underwear, if for no other reason than now I won’t have to do so many loads of whites to keep the cotton stash at the ready for gym days. For those of you with a disproportionate number of Granny Panties, don’t give up! Just because your hips have spread out to balance your bottom, which dropped somewhere below Antartica in recent years, it doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to wear sexy underwear. It does mean you need to get properly-fitting underwear with the sticky stuff along the edges to hold it in place—check out Soma for those in regular woman sizes.

For you men, thank you for keeping the laundry loads down with your minimalist purchases; and thank you for buying that “Hell No” underwear a few years ago, even though our bodies were clearly past looking good in them–it might have made us mad initially, but secretly, we were pleased you still saw us that way at all!

PS–when I was looking for pictures of underwear online, I came across some that were hysterical, but that I could never publish here.  If want a giggle, just search for funny underwear pictures.