Panties!
And since I know you're all thinking about it: no, they're not Mel's panties I'm referring to.
This past Saturday, I found myself staring forlornly at the kiosk. I wondered at where the New Year's vacation had gone to. However, I did not have to wonder at where my pants had gone to. The company gets rather twitchy if their kiosk I-suppose-I'm-the-manager-I-guess is kindly removed off the mall premesis by security after having frightened old ladies and mothers with young children.
Inside the kiosk were a number of boxes from the shipment of merchandise we had received Friday, but had not yet been received and recorded. And so in the usual I-suppose-I'm-the-manager-I-guess manner, I stared into the first open box and prepared to start the receiving.
Here's a brief list of what was in the box: five gumball machines in boxes, three Coke can banks, a few wallets in their boxes, and a pair of panties. Needless to say, upon seeing a pair of white thong panties inside one of our merchandise boxes, I paused and blinked a few times.
I knew that the Bentley Corporation sold winter wear stuff like mittens and scarves...but panties were new on the list to me. First I was boggled. Then I realised that, having been out of the kiosk for the last few days, perhaps I had missed that critical memo informing everyone that we were now a "lingerie" gift kiosk.
Of course...that still didn't explain why there was only one pair of white thong panties in the box. Not to mention, it was a pair of white thong panties with a tag from
La Vie En Rose attached to it.
Okay, so much for my Lingerie Gift Kiosk theory. Though I do wonder if I could sell women's underwear with (pardon the phrasing) a straight face.
This still didn't explain how a pair of panties had mysteriously appeared inside the box. I knew that the "Spontaneous Creation" theory had been disproven in the Middle Ages, where it was once believed that rats suddenly appeared in places where there was a lot of food and filth.
Were they a gift from On High, panties from heaven as it were, born of some immaculate conception/sewing, given to me for some divine purpose? Doubtful. Worth considering, but alas, doubtful. White isn't really Mel's colour. (And that just earned me a scornful look...and probably a good thwack from the nearest pillow to boot.)
I then reflected that I was the only guy working at the kiosk. Perhaps one of the three female co-workers had left it there after making some purchases during a lunch break. Granted, I was not about to ask myself which of them said panties belonged to, and I'd as soon never know.
Not knowing what else to do with these panties until someone else who worked Friday and could explain their presence showed up later in the afternoon, I took the pair of white thong panties and discreetly placed them in the "Hold" drawer of the kiosk.
Sometime later, it was explained to me that no one working at the kiosk had left the panties there. The cuplrit, as it were, was a customer who had been looking at photo albums and...well, somehow lost their recently-purchased pair of undies atop the rows of albums. In short, a woman out there is missing her panties, and unless she has any sort of replacement pair, is probably very cold right now.
Not that a pair of thongs really do anything to help keep one warm anyways. How can it, when it's practically cloth butt-floss? See, this is why I'm a boxers kind of guy....
Today's Reflection: having a mall almost completely dead all day long can be a refreshing change from the hordes of people. Of course, in a week or so I'll probably be whining about how bored I am during the day.
posted by Phillip at 6:55 PM
