My mother wears pantyhose. She calls them stockings. Not that she goes anywhere, mind you. She just wears stockings everyday. She'll be ninety next month, so that's not liable to change. Ever. Not just any stockings though. They must have reinforced toes but no control top. The color doesn't much matter - as long as it's nude or suntone. Oh, and you can only buy them at Kmart.
My mother lives in another state and I have three sisters that live within shouting distance of her, but apparently I'm the only one who can get her said stockings. The problem is, Kmarts are few and far between, and well, folks just don't wear stockings that much anymore. Especially that kind. Whenever I stumble upon a Kmart, wherever I happen to be (like driving to Florida for a vacation) I always turn into the parking lot and enter said store in search of the elusive pantyhose. Sometimes I get lucky. A couple of years ago, I sent her eight boxes. At three to a box, well, you can do the math.
She called me yesterday and said that she was "running low on stockings". That means, send more. Fortunately, I just happened to have four boxes that I bought somewhere between here and Panama City Beach last year so they are already packaged and ready to be mailed.
I used to wonder whether there were any stores near where she and my sisters live and if I'm the only one who's capable of buying stockings. Maybe it's the price I pay for never living close by. I left home when I was eighteen, eventually settling in California where I lived for thirty-five years before moving to Georgia.
Now I tell myself how fortunate I am to still have a mother who tells me exactly what she wants and needs and is still able to care for herself and put on her own damn stockings.
Ain't that te truth!
ReplyDeleteOh, Shugsie! Here you are!
ReplyDeleteYou're a good daughter (and isn't it strange to be both a grandmother AND a daughter?) to buy your mama's panty hose. We should all be so fortunate to be able to pull up our own damn stockings at the age of ninety although I am pretty sure that stockings will be the last thing on my mind if I manage to hit that venerable age. If I even have a mind.
(And what are you going to do when K-Mart goes entirely out of business?)
In my mind's eye I see a lovely group portrait:
ReplyDeleteMs. Shugsie and her mother with Dr. M. and her two sisters (all in stockings of course!:).
I have not met any of you in person, but I have met Dr. M. through her writing and I know beyond any doubt that you are a beautiful group of women - beautiful not only on the outside, but even more so on the inside.
Dear Ms. Shugsie, I look forward to visiting your blog regularly.
If you are the mother of the Grady doctor I wonder how proud you are of her and would love to read a post on that....I read every post of the Grady doctor and now look forward to reading yours as well.
ReplyDeleteLove it! My own dear grandmother is 91 and lives in California. I'm in Mississippi. My assignment is to send her Bob's soft peppermint sticks. So every few months, my daughter and I head to Cracker Barrel, buy her a box full and ship them off. My brothers send her peanut brittle. We are the only grandchildren not in the Los Angeles area. My father fusses at us for feeding her sweet tooth, but I think at 91 she can eat candy all day every day if that's what she wants to do.
ReplyDeleteThis post made me smile. As does not having to wear stockings or pantyhose!