High Maintenance

Joanie hung up the phone and leaned against the kitchen cupboards. "Not again," she said to no one in particular. This was the third time in as many weeks that her next door neighbor, Mildred, had called to ask if she could borrow a pair of underpants. It wasn't that she minded helping people out but it wasn't like loaning a cup of sugar or a couple of eggs. Underwear's expensive, and well, you know, personal.

Fortunately she'd stocked up on new ones at the K-Mart sale. It would have been pretty embarassing if the call had come earlier. The elastic in the legs of her old ones had grown all tired and the lace was so frayed she'd almost felt guilty at donating them to the Goodwill. But then they hadn't had any holes or anything so she just couldn't make herself throw them away. At the rate Mildred was going, she'd soon be down at the thrift store buying them back.

Mildred had returned the first pair of borrowed undies the very next day, discretely bagged in a small brown bag with a thank you card pinned to the top. The second time the thank you note was replaced with a sympathy card and a long explanation of how the lacy size 8s had got caught under the agitator and came out a shredded mass of nylon acetate.

Joanie noticed that her neighbor had seemed to avoid her since that misfortune and to tell the truth she wasn't altogether unhappy. She was beginning to be a bit too high maintenance for someone who had only been in the neighborhood for a month.