…The idea was that going without hose required other time-intensive personal hygiene habits: shaving every day, lotions to maintain skin condition, exercise for muscle tone, etc, which among other things demonstrated that you had the time and money to maintain this appearance….

However, sistren and brethren, pantyhose are excellent if you participate in ride-and-tie.

I remember working at Longs Drug Store many many years ago (it’s a chain in the west). Women were required to wear skirts or dresses and pantyhose. Good thing we got a discount on pantyhose, because you couldn’t get through a day without trashing them. I mean, we lady-girls, although restricted from being employed in the career-track manager program, and consigned to the cash registers, nevertheless had to pinch-hit in the warehouse and the shopping cart round-up.

I have a friend who’s now in her 60s. As a young flight attendant stewardess, part of the daily inspection involved having their female supervisor randomly pinch through their skirts to snap their garters.

Old fashioned stockings sucked, too. Most of us wore knee socks to school. Wearing non-stretchy hose with non-stretchy garter belts was a recipe for unpleasantness; for me, it meant accordian-pleats of pinky-beige nylon at my ankles.

But pantyhose, oh God, why has no one mentioned the frustration of pulling them up, only to find that you’ve got twisted-legs. The ill-defined “foot” of the hose has inexplicably got turned somewhere around your knee, and which way do you turn it to untwist it, or will you be twisting it worse? And also, one day I was putting on my pantyhose while trying to talk on the telephone, and I had ‘em almost up, but my knee tickled, and I looked down and saw I had trapped a spider, who was struggling between my leg and its hideous prison of evil, non-silk webbing. It was shrieking “Who spun this thing? Let me out, OMG, I will never trap another bug in my life, I swear. Halp!”

Finally: I just remembered my bare-legged faux pas of 1970. I was a bridesmaid, one of four, and dear god, no one told me I was expected to wear sheer white pantyhose with the white sandals. My toes looked cute. The other girls’ toes looked weirdly webbed. But I swear the bride’s mom wanted to toss me out on my slutty, trailer-trash ass.

Which is, of course, why I blame the patriarchy.

Needless to say, the first day was my last.

Knee highs cut in behind the knees and show if your skirt is anywhere north of the ankle bone. Thigh highs - my mother wore those, but they always seemed to land right in the middle of the thigh and either weren’t tight enough to stay there or were tight enough to leave a deep red groove for hours. Panty hose were too tight or too long or both, sagging at the knees, drooping at the crotch, squishing in the middle, develop great gaping holes if you look at them funny or touch them with a fingernail or walk next to anything that might ever once have had a sharp protrusion on it. Hate hate hate hate hate.

I admit, it got marginally better when I learned that I could actually buy them to fit me, but when I was wearing them to work I was getting maybe two wearings off a pair before it became unusable. And they offer no substantial warmth whatsoever (though I suppose they might mitigate windburn a little bit; I’m not anxious to experiment since my skin is dry enough already this time of year.)

As day-to-day wear, nylons royally and truly suck like a name-brand vacuum cleaner.

I did wear a pair the other day, though, when I was shoveling snow, so my cold wet jeans wouldn’t stick to my legs.

But that doesn’t mean the best part of the experience wasn’t taking the damn things off.

2. Nothing that makes your waist look like a snowman’s can be considered sexy.

3. Nylons have only one use at this point: they fit great under a pair of ski pants and thermals.

And it’s only “white” within a very narrow range. God forbid you should have (like me) ancestry from places like Ireland and end up with legs that your friends refer to as “sharkbait” if you’re at the beach. Wearing “nude” hose makes me look like I sprayed my legs with wood stain.

women should judge the quality of their legs to decide if they can abstain from wearing pantyhose.

Ok, now I want practical joke pantyhose. I have ideas.