I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression by Erma Bombeck Page B

pull and tried to tell my bread man so, but he stood at his truck, folded a coffee cake like a newspaper, and literally threw it into the bushes. That was strange.
    I didn’t see him again for a week. By this time, I had worked up to the face lift exercise. As I did the breakfast dishes, I winked with my left eye and at the same time lifted the side of my mouth. As I winked and smiled, winked and smiled, I looked up to see the bread man staring at me.
    That was the last time I saw him.
    His wife called and thanked me tearfully for being the single guiding force that cured her husband’s drinkingproblem. That same afternoon, I found a box of cookies in my mailbox from her.
    Yesterday, my neighbor came over with a new guide to beauty. She said for tired brains, just sit in a chair with arms loose at your sides and pretend you’re floating on a white cloud in the blue sky.
    Like I told her, “With crazy people running around like my bread man, I’m afraid to close my eyes.”
CREEPING UNDERWEAR
    We have virtually erased bad breath in this country, stamped out dandruff, and done away with burning, itchy feet, but we have been unable to conquer one of society’s most dreaded diseases: Creeping Underwear.
    Everyone talks about Creeping Underwear, but no one does anything about it. Technical research has put powdered orange juice on the moon, yet on earth we are still plagued with pantyhose that won’t stay up, slips that won’t stay down and girdles that should contain a WARNING, WEAR AT YOUR OWN RISK label.
    To suggest that Creeping Underwear changes a person’s personality is the understatement of this decade. The other night I went to a movie, a fully confident, well-adjusted, stable, human being.
    Two hours later, I was a totally different person. My slip had crept to my waistline to form a solid innertube which added about fifteen pounds to my form.
    My girdle, in a series of slow maneuvers, had reached several plateaus during the evening. First, it slid to my waist. Upon finding this area was already occupied by a slip, it moved upward, cutting my chest in half and gradually moved upward to where it pinched my neck and caused my head to grow two inches taller.
    The pantyhose were quite another story. They keptsliding down until I realized halfway through the movie that I was sitting on the label in the waistband and that if I dared stand up the crotch would bind my ankles together.
    I tried to adjust these garments in a way so as not to call attention, but every time I bent my elbow, two straps slid onto my shoulder and bound my arms like a strait jacket.
    My husband was the first to notice the change in my personality. “What are you doing sitting under the seat in a fetal position?” he asked. “Are you trying to tell me you do not like the movie?”
    “I am suffering from Creeping Underwear,” I whispered.
    “You should have taken a couple of aspirin before you left the house,” he snarled. “Now, get up here and sit up straight in your seat.”
    He didn’t understand. They rarely do. Nearly 98.2 per cent of all the victims of Creeping Underwear are women. As I sat there I looked under the seat next to me and saw another woman in a similar position. “What are you doing down here?” I asked.
    “I crossed my leg and was all but flogged to death by a loose supporter,” she sighed.
    “Do you think they’ll ever find a cure?” I asked hopelessly.
    “I hope so,” she said. “Your tongue is beginning to swell.”
GOOD-BY, GIRDLE
    This generation must be doing something right. I read in the paper last week where a girdle factory shut down from lack of sales.
    I regard the obituary of a girdle factory with mixed emotion. It’s like having your mother-in-law move out becauseyou have snakes in your basement. There is something good to be said for girdles. Maybe I’ll remember what it is.
    The problem with girdles is that they are designed under the law of redistribution. They really don’t contain the