G Love and Special Socks

More than one person has asked me with an undertone of accountability if I ever did put on those compression hose stockings.

Yes, I did. My concern quickly changed from the fashion statement it made to the logistics of how to get the darn things on. I bought them in size large. As in, these are supposedly the same compression stockings that are being sported by old men with congestive heart failure, whose legs are likely to be considerably more beefy than mine.

I have worn my share of panty hose to church, weddings, and Christmas gatherings. I am aware of the proper technique, which is to bunch up the hose and hold the gathered material open to allow for the foot, so that the remainder of the material then unravels itself as it is pulled up onto the rest of the leg. Good theory, and it might have worked, had I been able to get my hands out of the stocking to fit my foot in. The things are so tight that as I bunched the first stocking, it swallowed by hands and bound them together until it threatened the circulation in my upper limbs. It was like a freaky venus fly trap. I finangled my hands out and with akward positioning, tugging, yanking, grabbing, and grunting, I worked the hose up my legs. I frowned, panting, flustered and flushed, staring down at my white tights. Michael, filling out his nightly Soduku puzzle next to me in bed, said, "well, at least you're getting exercise at the same time!"

This comment has landed him the job of shoving the hot socks onto my legs every night. I'll admit, he's getting it down, even if his face is contorted in furrowed eyebrows and a tight-lipped grimace. It's easier to get a sleeping bag back into its original carrying case, a map folded back flat, or a woman's suitcase to close than it is to stuff me into my special socks. When we first were married, I knew that there would be a day when feeling pretty and attractive in bed wouldn't come around as often, and with grey hair, I would don a flannel nightie or a housecoat and call it sexy. But I must admit that I didn't picture skipping this far forward, even past the flannel and polyester, and wear compression stockings to bed by year two. It's a different kind of romance.