I'm Bringing Sexy Back

I went underwear shopping last weekend for the first time in about four years. Sure, I’ve bought cheap, cotton panties to replace their older, uglier, less intact twins; but nothing fancy. I realized that morning that I was still wearing my maternity underwear, from my first pregnancy.

At one point they were happy colors like petal pink, sunny yellow, and lavender. Now, after four years and about a million cycles in the wash, they are a uniform shade of grey. Not even a handsome, sophisticated, shade of grey. More like the color of the sludge that falls off the bottom of your car after it snows. It is the color of sadness. I hate them.

We had taken the boys to the mall to run around, because we haven’t seen our backyard since before Christmas. You know the cabin fever has gone from mildly annoying to life threatening when you drag a three-year-old and a nine-month-old to a crowded shopping center, on a Saturday, just for fun. It was that or the McDonalds play place, and I hate that clown.

On our way to the germ-riddled children’s play area of the mall we passed Victoria’s Secret. I looked at the model in the window, with her tiny waist and enormous angel wings, and then down at my own sports bra and baggy t-shirt. Convinced that my underwear were holding me back from rocking a body like hers, I told my husband to take the three-year-old and wheeled my enormous double stroller into the bright pink store.

What felt like hours later I emerged from the store victorious with spoils in hand. After crashing into three racks of lingerie, trying on about a hundred bras, secretly cleaning smeared baby cookie off more than one article of silk clothing, and several sideways glances from people wondering why I was wheeling a stroller the size of small Volkswagen through the thong aisle, I felt like I’d earned a little treat.

I was impatient. I wanted to feel sexier and I wanted it now. My inner child was stomping her feet like a toddler. So I wheeled my son, who was by now very confused as to why I kept flaunting his milk dispensers in front of him and then covering them back up, into the bathroom. Of course, I couldn’t find a single stall that could accommodate my giant vehicle so i backed into the farthest one from the door, wedged the stroller in the open doorway and proceeded to change my underwear.

My boobs felt like they were up around my chin. God bless whoever invented the push up bra. Next I slipped on a new pair of lace panties. They were a beautiful coral pink color that looked nothing like sludge, misery, sadness or any of the colors of my old underwear. I was feeling better already. The baby smiled at me and threw his cookie in my direction. I took it as a compliment as I picked the mushy food out of my hair.

I quickly threw my clothes back on and headed out to find the rest of my family. On my way out I passed the full-length mirror on the wall at the entrance to the bathroom. I paused to check myself out. There I stood, in my t-shirt that had been stretched out in all the wrong places for my new perky boobs, and baggy old sweatpants that still had the handprints from where I’d wiped flour on them while making dinner the night before.

I pulled the waistband of my sweats down slightly to reveal my new panties. So what if I still looked like I just rolled out of bed and got hit with the frumpy stick? It felt good to be wearing something new, even if no one else could see it. I was definitely bringing sexy back. Confidently, I strolled away from the mirror and toward the sound of shrieking children coming from the play area.

Of course, as soon as I started walking my new, beautiful, lacy, sexy underwear crept right up my butt. There’s nothing sexier than that.

Mary Widdicks is a 30-year-old mother of two boys, two male dogs, and an ever­ changing number of gender-­indeteriminate fish. Her husband calls her ‘Honey’, the three-year-old calls her ‘Mommy’, the baby calls her ‘Milk’, the dogs call her their Indentured Servant, and she’s pretty sure the fish have no idea who she is at all. She is also the writer of the humorous parenting blog www.outmannedmommy.com. You can also find her on Twitter