An Elastic Christmas Tradition

One incident in my married life turned into a Christmas tradition. It happened early in our marriage to Cindy Morrison Beck. As with most young couples who are first starting out finding a place to live and stretching the pay check to cover all of our bills caused us to be penny pinchers. We made do with many items that were nearing the end of their expected useful life. Leftovers were a normal meal fare. Generic black and white cans of food sometimes found their way into our pantry and clothing that had seen better days were worn at home.

One day as I sat in my recliner in the living room of our second hand mobile home, Cindy walked by me, wearing only her underwear and brassiere. She was headed towards the kitchen and I noticed that the cloth part of her cotton panties was partially separated from the elastic waist band in several places. It made her look as though she was wearing an empty gun holster on her hip.

I said, “I think you need to buy some new underwear.”

She replied, “They’re still okay. I can still wear them for a little while longer.”

Returning to the bedroom, I noticed the other side was loose, sagging and flapping in the breeze as well. If anything, the pouch on that side could have held a larger caliber pistol and I said, “Surely we can afford new gutchies for you.”

“They’re perfectly fine for me to wear around the house. Only you and I can see them.”

A few minutes later as she returned still clad in the same drawers. I reached out, poked my fingers into the breaches of her britches, and tugged hard. The connecting thread unraveled fastening the elastic to the rest of the underwear pulled loose and much of the cotton brief hung down.

Those undies were history. There was no way she could ever wear them again. Because Cindy hated to mend things, it would take something just short of a miracle for them to ever be wearable again. She disliked mending so much, that she “repaired” some of her clothing with safety pins. For some reason, she liked to sew new clothing, but not mending.

With the ruined bloomers barely more than the elastic encircling band her waist, she grabbed the remaining material up and called over her shoulder as she left to change, “Now you’ll have to buy me new underwear.”

And I did. Every year for Christmas…Cindy got new underwear. It was tradition.