Contemplating Underpants

I was conducting my never-ending battle with the laundry yesterday, and as I was pulling items out of the dryer I noticed that my son has Green Lantern underpants.



I did not buy any Green Lantern items for my son--my husband and his mother did that. The Green Lantern movie came out this summer(for those who pay attention). Our house has been inundated with GL sheets, GL toys, GL towels, GL jammies, GL t-shirts...you get the picture. All of these items have the Ryan Reynolds version of Green Lantern because they are all based on the movie. There are enough pictures of Ryan Reynolds on enough items to qualify us as the home of a stalker. My husband and son are just average fanboys, so it's all good. Looking at those underpants, however, I suddenly realized that my son has been running around with Ryan Reynolds' picture on his little backside.

Do you know how many women would be fighting to have Ryan Reynolds on their backside? Even with my math skills being horrible, that is an extremely high number! So why don't they sell this sort of garment to women? Think how many women would pay a heck of a lot of money to have a picture of their favorite celebrity hunk on their underpants. They may not ever meet George Clooney, but they could 'wear' him out for a night on the town.

Someone might mention the whole "my man won't find those underpants sexy in the least" aspect to this discussion. Fair enough. We all want to wear the sexy underpants that are most likely to flip the passion switch. Remember that scene in Bridget Jones' Diary, where Bridget excuses herself so she can change into her sexy underpants while an unexpected date waits in the other room? Who over thirty hasn't done that at least once?

But what do we usually wear on days that aren't date night? Plain old cotton--whether it's a bikini, a thong, boy short, or briefs. There is not a darn thing wrong with cotton--it's comfortable, and most days cotton underwear doesn't get bunched up, which is a definite bonus.

Women are major purchasers of underpants in this country. We do most of the shopping for our families, and that includes unmentionables. If we asked for pictures on our underpants, companies would have to listen. I've seen underpants for women that have writing on them. It wouldn't be that much of a stretch to have a picture instead. And what is wrong with having a picture of Ryan Reynolds* on the backside of those underpants?

Not a darn thing.


*Disclaimer: I have no wish to wear underpants with Ryan Reynolds on them. He is merely an example. I promise! And no, you can't have the pair pictured!

Service with a Smile

My husband had to go to the ER this morning. He started having some abdominal pain over the weekend, but last night it got horrible enough that he chose to go to a hospital. My father came and got him. As soon as Zane was awake, I took him to my parent's house and went to the hospital.

While we were back in an exam room, waiting to see the doctor, I noticed a commotion in the hall. Two elderly women, one with a walker, were 'chasing' after a nurse, both talking at the same time. The nurse herded them into an exam room. A few minutes later, another nurse was being stalked by these two. She also herded them back into their exam room. This happened about six times in an hour. In that time, I figured out that the woman with the walker was the patient, and the other lady was her BFF or sister. The BFF was apparently hard of hearing; there was a lot of "WHAT?" going on.

What I gathered from overhearing(they were loud!) and observing(they kept walking by!) was that if the woman with the walker so much as twitched, her BFF had to get the nurse. But when the friend left the room to get the nurse, the walker woman had to follow her.

Larry was in a hospital bed, not feeling happy at all(kidney stone, they think), speaking to the nurse, when all of a sudden the BFF just walked into the room.

"You can't be in here." the nurse spoke in a firm voice.

"She needs her blood pressure taken," the BFF said, as if the nurse hadn't said a word and Larry and I weren't there.

"You can't be in here!" the nurse repeated, a little louder.

"WHAT?" the BFF cocked her head to the side, as most hard of hearing people do.

"YOU CANNOT BE IN HERE!" Louder this time.

"WHAT?"

At this point, I am onto this woman's game.

She's trying to cut her friend ahead in the line by being obnoxious! In order to get the woman to get the heck out of that ER, the nurse would have to drop every other patient she was seeing, no matter how much more seriously ill they were, to take care of some woman who didn't really look all that ill to me.

I've seen this kind of con before, mostly at concerts where women will do anything to avoid waiting in the line for the ladies' room. I just never thought to see it in a hospital. I also never thought to see it being tried by ladies in their eighties! But I guess it makes a weird sort of sense--they aren't exactly going to any rock concerts, but that doesn't mean that they want to wait in line.

Fortunately for Larry, this nurse had no intention of dropping everything to cater to those women. She also had seen this sort of thing before. She very firmly herded the BFF out of Larry's room and closed the door. Then she finished what she was there to do, which was remove the various tubes and wires that had been stuck into my husband so we could go home.

And for that, he is eternally grateful.