It is my opinion as of Sunday, April 23rd, 2011, that there are only two excuses for pantyhose. (Don't hold me to that in a few years; my opinions have been known to change. I used to firmly believe that there was never any excuse for leggings to be worn as pants, but I am now the proud owner of two pairs of "Jeggings", one of which I am wearing right now.)
Anyway, as of right now, I believe there are only two reasons to wear pantyhose. They are as follows:
1. Theater
I never wore pantyhose EVER before I started high school theater and it became a requirement for every girl to wear pantyhose. (Not sure why that is).
2. Church/Parties
I lump the two together because both usually require you to look good in someone else's house.
Other than those two instances, I can't think of any other example of me wearing pantyhose.
Let's go back to No. 1 for a moment. Theater. Seeing as I never wore pantyhose before I started theater, I never owned any. When I did my first show, my mom and I went out and bought two pairs of pantyhose. They were both ripped and unusable by the time the show ended, so when the next show came around I had to go out and buy two more pairs. This became a sort of tradition for me. When dress rehearsals came around, my mom and I went out and bought two pairs of pantyhose.
Somehow my two pairs from Little Shop came out relatively unscathed, and the same with my two pairs from Pride and Prejudice at the end of last year. I didn't need any for Romeo and Juliet since I was playing a boy, and we haven't gotten into dress rehearsals for Rhinoceros yet, so I haven't had to use them since Little Shop.
Now, on a stage one can usually get away with having one or two tears in a pair of pantyhose, but in church it's not quite so simple. People are closer, and they will JUDGE those tears. So you really need to have either a brand new pair, or a pair that you have kept in such good shape that they are immaculate anyway.
Well it's Easter today, which requires church-going.
My family doesn't go to church as often as we should. Maybe if we went more or less every week I'd have more good pairs of pantyhose.
But we don't.
And I don't.
Out of my four leftover pairs, none of them are immaculate.
I pulled them out of my drawer one at a time and examined each for holes. The first three had small tears on the legs which would be fine for the stage, but, again, not for church.
Finally, the last pair I pulled out looked pretty good, except for a bit of wear at the toes. But really no one was going to be looking at my toes.
But you're not just standing or walking around at church, as you would be at a party. At church you sit down, kneel down, sit up, stand up, sit, stand, sit, stand, kneel, sit, kneel, stand, etc. For over an hour.
Pantyhose aren't very strong. It's amazing how fast they can grow a rip. After an hour, the little tear that was at my toe at the beginning of church had grown all the way up to my knee by the end.
FFFFFFF!!
I have now retired yet another pair of pantyhose.
At least Jeggings don't tear.
