Please don’t think this post is meant to be in any way disparaging of my recently deceased grandmother. On the contrary, this post is one of veneration and respect for a woman who we apparently knew little about.
My mother called me this evening with news from dear old Gran’s closet.
Apparently whilst my mother and my aunts were going through grandma’s effects, trying to figure out what was worth keeping, and what was worth donating to whomever, they happened across a few interesting finds.
Grandma's fashion sense was always colorful, and admittedly, for an older lady, Grandma had no problem with what some might call "fashionable risks" ... She was a hip, hip chick, my grandma. So it didn't seem so out of the ordinary when mom called to tell me that she'd run across a few interesting things in the extensive clothing collection.
The most noteworthy items did come as a bit more of a shock though.
The evening got particularly interesting when they happened across some of Gran’s more intimate garments.
Apparently my dear, sweet, 81 year old grandmother had a penchant for nightgowns. Long, short, practical, silky, sheer, gaudy, Gran’s collection apparently ran the gamut. Perhaps the most interesting twist to the story came when mom relayed to me that Gran’s taste in intimates was not limited to nightgowns.
Yes, that’s right, THERE’S MORE.
Apparently Gran also owned a naughty pieces of lingerie as well. Mom mentioned a old school style SHEER garter belt. Based on the information that it appeared to be “old fashioned” this didn’t seem so bad. Then mom mentioned a little black corseted number… Please keep in mind that this is my 81 year old grandmother, who used to read me stories, hem my jumper skirts for grade school, and make me baloney (bologna) and cheese sandwiches when I was little… Mom CONTINUED by mentioning that my dearly departed grandmother also owned a pair of (AND I QUOTE…) “BLACK CROTCH-LESS PANTIES.”
Please, take a moment, breathe, pick your jaw up off the desk, and if you care to, go back and read that last bit again… We’ll wait.
Yeah, that’s right. My grandmother owned crotch-less panties.
At 81, my grandmother had more interesting lingerie than I have now… and I’m in my 20s.
Something is VERY VERY wrong with this picture.
Don’t get me wrong here. I’ve got a fair amount of “good” underwear. I can’t say that I’ve ever owned crotch-less panties though. (To be honest, I’d never even CONSIDERED owning a pair of crotch-less underwear.) And I’m not writing this because I am in any way shamed by the fact that my grandmother owned a lingerie item that I have never even dreamt of purchasing… in fact, if I were ashamed of that fact, I can pretty much guarantee that you’d never have heard about it. No I am not at all ashamed of this. In fact, I stand in awe of it! Grandma never ceases to amaze me… even now.
I happened to be in the company of J-Dub and Meljoy when I first learned of the existence of these items belonging to my dearly departed grandmother, they had their own two cents to add on the subject.
“Wow! Way to go Grandpa! Apparently he was still going strong!” ~Meljoy
“Well, jeez, no wonder Grandpa misses her!” ~ J-Dub
J-Dub also added that she was impressed by grandma’s more exotic items… so much so that she thinks that we need to go out and purchase black crotch-less panties as a kind of homage to her.
Needless to say, this new information has caught me off guard, and quite frankly I have been forced to reconsider the portrait I had mentally painted of my late grandmother.
Prior to my newfound knowledge, I thought of Grandma as a classic-type of grandmother figure, with prudish morals (that she most definitely, effectively passed down) and a woman who had only a very limited idea of all-things-sexual. (Most women who grew up in that era spent their whole lives with only one man, etc.) And granted, Gran did spend 59 happy years with her husband, and she did firmly believe that sex outside of marriage was a hell-worthy trespass… But then we factor in this new information and things start to make a little more sense. For example, her sense of humor, while always razor sharp, always seemed a little incongruently sexual. To anyone else, it would’ve seemed like she was a martini-drinking, fun-loving, crass, woman with a bit of a dirty mind. Now that I know this about her, things are falling into place with much greater ease.
Me thinks that grandma was not quite the prude that she would’ve had us believe… Either that, or we all need to sit down and re-evaluate what exactly falls in the category we know as “Granny Panties!”
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QOTD
J-Dub: “Mel do you know what you’re doing?”
Mel: “No, but I do have a black belt in keeping-it-real!”
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