Day 104/Day 12: Better Known As Bacon Strip

I don’t have anything against laundry, but I also don’t throw my skivvies out the way women’s magazines tell me I should. Cosmopolitan says I must toss every pair with even the whisper of a hole. Purge those panties, girls, in case the hunk of your dreams arrives, unexpected.

It’s like the old wives tale about wearing clean underwear whenever you leave the house. I could get hit by a bus or spontaneously combust and God knows rescue workers won't be distracted enough by my charred and blackened remains. God knows my undies should be pristine.

My mother never told me or my sisters that. We wear our knickers ‘til they unravel from our asses, 'til they look like tattered bandages from WWI trench warfare, we don’t care. Maybe this is our family secret: wearing underpants long past propriety. Maybe I shouldn't tell you this and reveal our familial inability to let things go. Maybe laundry just isn’t as powerful as that.

I was training hard that summer, fitting workouts in wherever I could: a swim before work, a lunchtime jog, a two-hour ride before falling, exhausted, into bed. Every day, I’d schlep to work, backpack stuffed with crumpled cycling clothes, a wet bathing suit or sweat-damp running shorts. I got used to whipping my civilian clothes off and my workout clothes on, like some kind of superhero in training, changing in back corners and basement bathrooms.

Copywriter-turned-triathlete was a chaotic double life; it wasn’t surprising there was fallout. One afternoon, as I bolted from the office to my next sweat-based experience, a pair of underwear got lost in the shuffle.

I arrived to work the next morning to find a plastic grocery bag on my desk with a paper towel inside. I lifted the towel to discover my escapee underpants. They must have fallen out of my overstuffed backpack, onto the floor of our open-concept office. I didn’t notice, but I feared one of my co-workers did. I went into a fugue state of denial and shock, praying that the nighttime cleaning staff had got to them first, somehow intuiting by psychic vibration that my desk was the correct place to leave them.

The rogue underclothing in the bag was a white thong. And when I say ‘white’ I mean it was probably that way when I bought it. But at this point, the waistband was pretty much the only part that wasn’t stained beyond repair.

I’m not one of those women who keeps track of her period. I just go about my life and let the drips fall where they may. And while it would be better to have my bodily functions cross-referenced with my monthly undergarment schedule, I’ve accepted that things in the panty department will occasionally get ugly. But that doesn’t mean I want an audience.

However, after my initial shock, the Day of the Thong progressed relatively normally. Until I dropped in on the web design guys. This particular department was a kind of in-house fraternity where belching was acceptable in response to a question and hot sauce was a food group. Entering their domain was always something of a risk.

“Good morning, Bacon Strip,” Matt smirked as I walked into the room.
“Lookin' sizzlin', Bacon Strip,” Ryan echoed, not looking up from his screen.

I stared at them blankly before backing away. I didn’t know what bacon strip meant, but I knew it wasn’t good. I hurried back to my desk to do some research. I had a feeling Merriam-Webster wouldn’t be any help, so I went straight to the Urban Dictionary, past ‘bacon ring’ and ‘bacon slit’ to: “The remnants of an improper arse wiping, as left on your underwear.”

“Yo, Bacon Strip,” another voice came from behind me as I sunk down in my chair. Besides being the only person in the office not to know that this charming term meant, it was far too late to call in sick.

Gradually, as our entire twenty-five person staff dropped by my office just to say hello, I pieced together the rest of the story:

Eva, unassuming production artist, happened upon the offending panties first. Inexplicably, she asked Paul – graphic designer and office nutjob – if they were his. Paul was weird, but not women’s panties weird. Regardless, he wasn’t about to let an opportunity like this pass by.

“This is like CSI,” he said to Eva before retrieving a ruler and his Nikon. My panties had turned into a crime scene. The thong was photographed from several angles as per proper Forensics procedure, and subsequently uploaded to the office file server for further high-resolution investigation. If the means for DNA testing were available in an ad agency, I’m sure he would have done that, too.

When the evidence was properly catalogued, the problem lay in disposal. I can just see Eva tittering and dancing around, all giddy at the idea of touching someone else’s dirty panties. I can just see her poking them with the ruler, hoisting them up and squealing when they tumbled back down to the floor.

There was no way to say, “They’re clean, just horribly stained,” and have anybody accept that. My only option was to stay quiet and weather it out. The mocking lasted about a week before moving on to something and someone else. Nicole’s madcap divorce or David’s hilarious-yet-terminal illness. It’s not personal, it's the way those kinds of places are.

I still wear that thong now, years later, washing it diligently every week. Those stains are badges of honor. Rust-coloured bandages from fights that no longer happen in trenches or mud-bogged battlefields or even desert waste. The battle to feel okay, day in and day out. Maybe the old wives were right: proper stain removal is critical if you’re walking into harm’s way. Maybe being clean is no longer enough. No amount of bleach or hot water could ever hide them: my war wounds, my spilled blood. Stains, lying there on the floor, exposed for everyone to see. Those things laundry can never wash away.