Hosiery hell

I do not want my top controlled

by Tanya Whiton

I recently got a postcard in the mail asking me if I wanted a pair of free Silkies pantyhose, in any size or shade available. All I had to do was indicate with the brightly colored (pink) sticker which ones I wanted. Well, who can resist free stuff? Who can resist stickers? I returned the postage-paid card with a request for a pair of medium nylons in black. I wear pantyhose approximately twice a year, so I figured I was all set for 2001.

Of course, I didn’t read the fine print. Who reads the fine print? I just assumed the Silkies people had taken a shine to me and wanted me equipped with at least one pair of un-run hose for special occasions. I thought maybe my mother called them. Little did I suspect that my acceptance of their medium blacks gave the high sign for the type of hosiery deluge I have since received. Large, pink plastic packages arrive in my mailbox every four or five weeks stuffed with not one, but three pairs of medium black control top reinforced toe pantyhose. Somehow, I am now part of a HOSIERY PROGRAM.

I’ve tried to send the packages back, writing in large block letters RETURN TO SENDER, and I’ve even gone so far as to write a letter to the Silkies corporation expressing my desire to be removed from their mailing list, but to no avail. The pantyhose keep on coming, more pantyhose than even the most ardent office worker with a professional loathing of bare skin could possibly wear. I’m a writer, for Christ’s sake. I sit around in my pajamas most of the time. Who do these people think I am?

They think I am Mrs. Tanya Whiton, pantyhose addict, Doris Day of the new millennium, a woman who simply cannot wait to get the new Silkies ULTRA shapely perfection hose with tummy minimizing panel. Whiton would be my maiden name, my nom de plume. Unless I married myself in the same kind of blind bureaucratic accident that has now implicated me in mail fraud, I am not Mrs. Anybody. Thank you very much. But apparently there is no communication between the people that send the pink packages and the people that BILL me for them, because in spite of my best efforts at returning their products, I’ve begun to receive threatening letters from one Mr. William Jenkins, Senior Credit Manager of the Direct Marketing Association.

“IS THERE A PROBLEM?” Is the welcoming salutation at the top of his last missive.

Well, yes sir, there is.

You could bounce a quarter off my behind these things are so tight. I can’t even breath when I’m sitting down.

What’s more, I’m perplexed by the diagrams accompanying my shipments. I had no idea pantyhose design was so complicated. Apparently teams of engineers trained in “rear sculpting technology” assemble each pair of Silkies with blow torches and protective goggles. In my most recent package, there was a cameo photo of an ULTRA shapely derriere outlined with mystifying descriptive blurbs, like: “Our FIRM AND FABULOUS SLING . . . cradles and lifts to make the most of your assets” and “GRADUATED COMPRESSION KNIT LEGS for shaping and exhilarating massage action.”

Is that legal? I mean, can you get hurt in these things? And what in God’s name is a healthful cotton-lined GUSSET?

I have gone from feeling flattered by my initial surprise “gift” to being irritated by some obvious organizational failings on the part of your returns department, and now, frankly, I’m just plain alarmed. Please, please, do not send me any more pantyhose.

Well, I’d like to say that the problem was eventually solved, that I triumphed over the bureaucracy of direct mail and that I will never again be so foolish as to return one of those postage-paid cards just because it has neat-o stickers on it. That when the BMG compact disc club offered me a free Billie Holiday CD, I realized with canny consumer awareness that they were going to send me Britney Spears the following month and accuse me of KEEPING THE ALBUM. I’d like to say that.

But that would not be true. And like Billie says: It’s a sin to tell a lie.

Tanya Whiton can be reached at twhiton@prexar.com.