The Pink Jungle
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By Pat McManus
January 2011
I am not a shopper, but this year I thought I would try to buy my wife, Bun, something appropriate for Valentine's Day. It turned cold very early here in Spokane and Bun complained about the chill several times after shoveling her way down to the mailbox, not all that far from the house, mind you, but she isn't that young anymore. As a matter of fact, the other day I heard her say, “Oh, to be seventy again!” It occurred to me that at her age she shouldn’t be getting chilled while out shoveling, so I decided to buy her some long underwear, the woolen kind, like the sort I wore as a kid growing up in Idaho.
After driving down to the nearest mall, I checked out a number of women’s clothing stores. I did stop by one called Victoria’s Secret and checked out the window display. After detecting some chest pains, I decided it would be best for me not to enter. Eventually I found myself at Macy’s. I asked one of the clerks for directions to the women’s department and presently came within viewing distance of the lingerie section. I had never before been in that section, and I must tell you it was a frightening experience. Not one to rush into new experiences I stood at a distance and studied the terrain, much as an explorer of old might have studied a menacing jungle, this particular jungle a vibrant pink. Somewhere in the pink interior no doubt rested the remains of numerous husbands mistaken for perverts and set upon by suspicious female clerks and shoppers.
See, it does a man no good to try to pass himself off as a casual shopper in a lingerie department. That, I surmised early on, would be a dead giveaway for a pervert. On the other hand, I thought that explaining to the head cashier that I was looking for my wife might provoke the response, “Yeah, right!” On the other hand should I add that we had been married for over fifty years, or would that be over doing it? I really didn’t want to ask any of the clerks for help. What would I say, “Can you direct me to bottoms? I’m only looking for bottoms. Do you have anything in a warm creamy bottom?” Actually, it was a warm creamy long-underwear bottom I was looking for because Bun has endless coats and sweaters to keep the upper half of her cozy. It was the bottom half about which I was concerned.
As I strolled through the pink jungle, my head tilted up and turning this way and that, as if looking for someone, possibly a wife, there it was on a rack, a whole display of creamy long underwear bottoms for women, one with an M on it, signifying Medium, which was exactly the size I was looking for. And it was in a creamy white rather than pink. White was important because we have a long-haired Siamese cat whose white hair gets on everything but the hair would never show up on creamy white long underwear.
I grabbed the Medium and rushed it over to the cashier. She gave me a slight smile, rang up the underwear and slipped it into a plastic bag.
“We have a cat,” I said.
She gave me an understanding nod. I suppose all perverts say that.