My current purveyor of underwear sells a product called “effortless” panties.

I ask so little of my underwear. I have specifically sought out skivvies that are not aggressive in any way. It horrifies me that, apparently, according to Marketing, there are women in America who want to buy underthings they have to put some work into. It’s already hard enough for me to learn some sheet music or get my car’s oil changed or do something about the bindweed invasion in the lower forty. I the hell do not want to have to train up my underpants.

So. I actually own some of these effortless panties. And, to the extent that I pull them up, and mostly don’t hear a squawk out of them all day, I think they’re just fine. I think they’ll be just fine until some years hence when they will all lose their miracle elasticity all at once (don’t tell me there’s not a secret conclave where these decisions are made) and start reaching for the floor with nothing stopping them but the crotch of the overpants.

At which point I will order up some new.

What I am trying to avoid is tremendous over-construction. I do not care for a bra that had to be designed by an architect or a NASA engineer. Someone familiar with stresses and force vectors and the Angle of Repose. The case can be made that that is exactly what I need in a bra, but people have different needs. Yes, I have enough pudding that it could be molded into just about any shape a person would want. If someone wanted to design a double-Gargoyle bra, I could fill it up, and my bosom could stare out balefully and protect my nethers from evil spirits. But such an eye-catching design is looking after someone else’s needs, not mine.

All I want to do is two things: I would like to confine the bra occupants just enough that people aren’t thinking there’s a kerfuffle going on under my shirt when I walk down the street. In a marked departure from my adolescence, I don’t want that attention.

And two: I would like to separate said occupants from the rest of my torso so that I am not constantly contending with wipeable slime in the underflaps and inviting a fungal situation. That’s all I want. If it gives me a bust line like the front seat of a 1960 Oldsmobile rather than sporty bucket seats I’m okay with that.

Weirdly, although I bought my last bras online and liked them just fine, for some reason the website has never heard of me, I don’t seem to have a purchase history, and it has no information on my sizes. Unhelpful. So I ventured out. New company looked like it was selling the same sort of item.

I wasn’t wild about the sizing chart they had. There were line drawings of the various shapes of breast you were supposed to identify with—your “round,” “asymmetric,” “east-west,” “teardrop,” etc. I can check at least two of those boxes. And, at the bottom—at the very bottom, hanging off the page, as it were—“Relaxed.”

Oh hell with that.

But I ordered some. They were fine. They seemed just like the old bras I liked.

Until I spent an afternoon gardening. I swear I couldn’t feel it happening, but after bending over for a while weeding, turns out my tits just fell right out. Didn’t even notice until I stood up again. Just the larger one, at first. One side was normal and half of the other side had fallen out so I had bonus cleavage. It looked like I was harboring one medium brioche and a large Parker House roll. Then I did some more weeding and they both fell out. Now we have a tourniquet situation. I wouldn’t blame anyone for staring. It wasn’t a kerfuffle. It was an insurrection. You’d have to look, just to see which one came out ahead.

I don’t know what the point is of a bra with an ejection feature. Might just as well eat soup out of a colander.

Happy 75th birthday to Dave!