Drive Safe

Growing up, my house was always messy and Saturday was always clean up day...all day. I never got to play with my friends on the weekends because mom would make us clean all day and then we had church all day on Sunday.

One thing that never managed to get done was laundry. It would get washed and dumped on the couch but never folded and put up. You could never open a drawer and your clothes be nicely tucked in there...you had to go on a scavenger hunt when you needed to get ready.

Growing up, I never saw my father wear pants inside the home. He walked around in his briefs (shudder) and no shirt. Just underwear. Whenever my friends came over, he never bothered to put pants on...he would just use a throw pillow. He would move about from room to room with a coffee cup and/or cig in one hand and a cushion placed strategically over his...whatever.

One day, I was digging in the fridge (don't know why...my mother never had anything good in there) so I never saw my father walk into the kitchen. I heard him stirring his coffee and turned around to ask him a question but was unable to form the words on my tongue. There he stood...in his scantily clad glory...wearing nothing but...my RATHER LARGE mother's hot. pink. panties.

"Why are you wearing mother's panties?" I asked in disgust.

"Cause...your momma hasn't done the laundry. I didn't have anything else to wear." He continued to stir his coffee as if the conversation was not really taking place.

"Well, couldn't you have just washed a load yourself?"

"I could have but I haven't had time to man...foot ("foot" was my father's signature way to end a particular conversation. He pronounced it as 'fut'...you can imagine how my friends might have confused that with another word) ."

"Have you worn those all day?"

"Sho have, " he said as he loudly slurped on his hot coffee.

"What if you got in a wreck? How would you explain that?" I asked, trying to make him understand the gravity of the situation.

"I'd just tell 'em your momma didn't do the laundry...foot." Clearly, he was undisturbed.

"Could you at least put some pants on...those panties are really tight...especially around the front...and their pink," I pleaded.

"Sho could. But I'm not. I aint ashamed....foot...if your momma would do the John Brown laundry more than once a month I wouldn't have to wear 'em. "

I think I repressed this particular memory for years until I recently went to my parents house to drop off a birthday present for my mom. My father answered the door...wearing her nightgown.