Caught In A Humorous But Distressing Situation

Inspired by Basil but you have to visit his place to understand why.

Soon after my art school days ended, I began working as an assistant art director for Boston's finest and best-dressed advertising firm. As this was the big leagues, the women there really understood how to dress. These were the glorious days of 3/4 length pleated skirts, high-necked silk and cotton blouses, huge silk scarves, ropes of pearls, french heels, and all the frilly underthings one can imagine. Well, I just dove straight into the world of sartorial splendor and had a ball. As Mr. P said when he first met me, "You look like a publisher of respectable books."

Since it was summertime and a very hot summer to boot , the older working girls at the firm advised us younger working girls to shed the traditional post '50's leggings for women. They advocated the older and much more traditional French silk legging method. My friends and I were somewhat aghast at this suggestion. It seemed untoward since we were not married. But finally when the heat got up above 90, we went en masse to the old Bonwit Teller's on Newbury Street to get properly kitted out as they say. When we tried on the French leggings we realised and appreciated the intelligence of our older colleagues. The French leggings with the extremely traditional straps were enormously cooler and much more comfortable. Who knew? Certainly not the feminists, that's for sure. We were hooked, so to speak and bought every shade of leggings we could afford.

Now, being a novice with these old-fangled hooks and straps did eventually catch up with me. One day not too long after, a colleague and I were headed out to lunch. It was a magnificent day and I was wearing a lovely seersucker suit with a full pleated skirt carrying my spectator pocketbook and because of the heat, navy slingbacks with my French leggings. We were in the shadow of Trinity Church, heding down Clarendon Street and I had my eye on an attractive seersucker-clad fellow who was approaching from the opposite direction when it happened : One of my French leggings became unhooked. Being made of silk, it took maybe a nanosecond before the entire thing had pooled around my ankle. The seersucker fellow who was about 10 feet away when this happened, did one of the oddest jumps I've ever seen. He just sort of went straight up in the air, shook a bit while he was up there and landed with his elbows bent up in the air. It was almost as if he had seen a ghost but then there was something different about it. When he landed, he tried very hard to act like nothing had occured. Meanwhile, I stopped dead, looked down and said somewhat loudly, "Great, just great. Now what do I do?" My colleague who had been watching the seersucker-clad fellow's strange movements looked down and understood immediately understood why he had been jumping about so strangely. She roared with laughter. This had even more of an unnerving effect on the seersucker-clad fellow. We watched him out of the corner of our eyes, struggle very hard to summons up enough energy to continue down the street past us in an upright manner. As he passed my colleague and I broke into giggling fits like two little maids from school are we. Then she spied a small nook near Trinity Church and said "Let's go in there." As I couldn't walk through Back Bay in the state I was in, I agreed. We ducked in and I swiftly removed both of my leggings and put them in my purse. As we emerged again from the shadows of Trinity Church, I started laughing because I recalled what had happened once to my maternal grandmother one Sunday when she attempted to present herself for Communion.

Trinity Church in Back Bay was and still is a very posh church. It is not high church but low church. My grandmother, who despised all things Catholic, was an ardent low-churcher. Well, one ordinary Sunday she was sitting in the pews, all wrapped in furs and pearls just like all the other ladies, awaiting her turn at the Communion rail. The usher came to her aisle, and nodded for her to go up. She stood up just like she did every Sunday. Except this Sunday as she stood up, her underclothes fell down. Completely down. They landed in a pool around her ankles. With the usher's eyes bugging out, she calmly stepped out of them, and with a most delicate lady-like kick, kicked her underclothes under the pew ahead of her. She exited her pew and presented herself for Communion au naturale. To her dying days, she maintained she was Trinity Church's first stripper.

My grandmother would have adored Basil Seal. It would have been lobster and all the cheap liqour he could down every night for him. He certainly wouldn't have had to purloin his mother's emeralds, he could have purloined hers...

Mrs. P

Comments

[Basil Seal]

Your grandmother obviously had excellent taste...Yes, I would have pinched her necklace...

[mandingo jones]

Very Benny Hill-esque.

BTW
An airline stewardess (yes I am not pc) on my Miami to NYC Jet-blue flight (a flight from hell) the other day wore French leggins with suspenders and she made no effort to conceal them - she was a very attractive 6 foot Nordic looking gal. Really! Hmmmm seersucker again - no good can come of this! Imagine seersucker undergarments for French leggins.

[Old Dominion Tory]

First, parsnip chowder, anadama bread, and Vermont cheddar. Now, Back Bay and Bonwit Teller. Mrs. Peperium, you are making this Cape Cod Yankee in Confederate Valhalla pine for home.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Basil, you would have pinched more than her necklace.
Mandingo, I'll let Basil comment on your comments.
Old Dominion Tory, it's the weather...