Remember the Seinfeld episode about “shrinkage” where George worries about whether women know that a man’s anatomy reacts like a “frightened turtle” after he’s been in cold water, because a woman saw him naked right after he went swimming? “I was in the pool!” He shouted.

A few years ago, I discovered the female equivalent to that scenario. A friend set me up on a blind date with a good friend of her husband’s. Because he was a trusted friend of theirs I did not mind him picking me up at my apartment. Gotta love chivalry! He arrived smelling very good and looking even better. He was slightly early, so I still had two loads of clean laundry in a basket on my couch that I had not had time to put away. I invited him in and quickly ran to the other room for my sweater.

As I was headed back down the hall, my eye caught the laundry basket long enough for me to notice a horrific site. I had left my “FrumpSista” panties, as I call them, in plain sight, prominently exposed on top of the heap of clean laundry! 

You know the panties I’m talking about, right? Not quite as bad as granny panties, but almost. The pair that you bought in a three for five bucks package from the TJ Maxx close out bin, that you only wear during your period when you have to wear a pad and need the wide crotch to wrap the wings around? That pair. The most boring, lace free, unfeminine pair of panties ever known to womankind. The panties with the “frills kills” attitude that all other lacy briefs and sexy thongs refuse to associate with in the underwear drawer. The pair that never saw the inside of a Victoria’s Secret store even in their infancy; and in their wildest dreams, aren’t even a distant third cousin of Victoria.

The pair of panties that if they could talk in their sleep, would be reciting the word frigid between snores. The pair that all other panties look to as an example of what they don’t want to be when they grow up.  The pair you sometimes wear to the gym on “leg day” when you know you’ll be using the abductor machine, otherwise known as the crotch shot machine, and you want to prevent sneak peeks up the leg of your shorts, (so the thong won’t work), but the lacy boy shorts will cause chafing and your usual sneak peek protector cotton bikinis are in the dirty laundry.

The pair that if they were glasses, would be called coke bottle lenses, because the fabric is so thick you can slide on the softball field and your ass never feels a thing.  In other words, the one pair of panties you would never be caught dead revealing to any man, especially not one with dating potential. Those are FrumpSista panties. Those were what sat on top of my clean laundry pile in plain view of Mr. Wonderful.  (Yes, I know; at least they were clean). 

This was a first date crisis from which I did not know if I could recover. As we got in his car, I was panicked. My mind raced. Had my cute date seen the disastrous experiment in fashion that happily played king of the hill over 10 other cute pair that hid beneath jeans and towels?

How did I not notice this when I brought the basket in? Should I say something? Maybe I could pretend they were my Aunt Hilda’s from Buffalo who had just visited the previous week and… And what? Left her underwear for me to wash? I didn’t know what to do. If he did notice the FrumpSistas I wanted him to know those weren’t my standard undergarments. But if he didn’t notice, then pointing it out to him would be a big mistake.

I wanted to let him know I wear other panties. I wear cute panties. I have thongs and string bikinis. Lacy ones. Silky ones. Sexy ones. Red ones. Black ones. Pink ones. I even have a black G string for those moments when I’m feeling really wild and crazy. I wanted him to know, dammit, I OWN SEXY UNDERWEAR! I slipped off to the bathroom before dinner like a secret operative on a mission, and called the friend who had fixed us up.

“Do men know about period panties?” I asked.

“What!? Where are you? I thought you were on a date tonight.” She answered back.

“Leg day gym panties.” “FrumpSistas” I whispered, from my hunched over position in the stall. “Do men know all women own a pair?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Is this another one of your surveys for an article?” She asked.

“Hurry. I need an answer. I have an emergency decision to make.” I urged.

“Am I your lifeline in some trivia game or something?” She asked. 

“If you were, I’d be dead right now. “Period panties!” Yes or no.” I reminded.

“Yes, I think men know. I’m voting yes. My final answer.” She said.

With that, I was out the stall and back to the table. This was pretty good news. Now I just had to connect the dots for my date. With a little liquid courage I thought I could handle the task. A glass of wine later, over dessert, I slipped it into the conversation that I had my period the week before. This was the perfect plan. If he saw the panties, now he would know they were limited use only panties and not my regular attire. If he didn’t see the panties, well, a little superfluous information never hurt anyone, right? Yeah, I know. Sober hindsight is 20/20.

The word “period” had barely left my lips when Mr. Wonderful  looked up from his Brownie A la Mode with a confused look on his face.

“I just thought you should know that.” I said with a wink.

“Oh. Ok. I uh…..didn’t…” He said, looking down at his plate. I interrupted trying to make a joke.

“That’s funny.” ‘You didn’t’, I repeated. “Of course you didn’t have a period.” I said while laughing.

He corrected me. “No, I was going to say I didn’t need to know that.”

“Well, it’s good that you do, because, you know……”

“Know what?” He asked.

Some girls, at this point, might have deduced that he didn’t see the panties, that if he had, they paled in comparison to the horror show unfolding in front of him, and regardless, wasn’t making the connection between my laundry basket from two hours ago and my period comment now. Those girls would have hit the breaks and gone a different direction. Others of us prefer stepping on the gas and steamrolling over the dead end sign so that we can crash head first into a brick wall.

“The wings make me have to wear them.” I said, flapping my arms like a butterfly.

He didn’t say anything, so I filled the space with more wine induced logic.

“Every day can’t be a tampon day. Some days are pad days.” I said.

At that moment, he became a brownie stuffing machine. And since ass has two s’s, and I had only confirmed one at that point; I kept going.

“And some days are liner days; but those fit on a thong so that’s a good thing.” I explained, as he was flagging the waitress down for the check.

You all know how the story ends. I awoke to my friend’s voice yelling at me on the answering machine. Mr. Wonderful married a girl who presumably was smart enough to avoid the words panty liner and tampon on their first date, and my FrumpSistas were replaced by some lululemon featherlight boyshorts, a slightly sexier alternative for “leg day” at the gym.

Moral of the story: Shrinkage resolves itself within a few minutes. Damage done by FrumpSistas lasts a lifetime; so hide them.