Eat My Shorts

Can we talk?

Right now, in a town not too far from where I dry my own clothes is a battle raging and a fierce one at that. And no, it's not over speeding drivers, neighborhood drugs or unscooped poop.

The battle rages over "unmentionables" flapping in the breeze, hanging peacefully from a clothesline. (Don't you love that word "unmentionables? It gives the connotation that Brace's lingerie consists of black leather dominatrix corsets with devil heads and skulls and crossbones emblazoned across the breast area and of course, crotchless. Ha, if she DID have those kinds of THOSE unmentionables hanging from her clotheslines, how much you wanna bet the husbands of the wives who are complaining would be foaming at the mouth and have phantasmagorical (is that a word?) dreams of naughtiness beyond comprehension.)

Concord (Mass.) resident Peggy Brace is embracing eco-friendly measures by foregoing an electric or gas dryer and hanging her clothes on a clothesline to dry. She air-dries her clothes outside, even in winter. And this alleged heinous, clothesline-hanging criminal act is - GASP -being committed ON HER OWN PROPERTY.

Can I get a "GET A LIFE PEOPLE" from everyone?

Yes, folks, it's the old NIMBY attitude raising it's ugly head: Not In My Backyard! Pretty soon you'll see signs up on neighbor's lawn that read "BRACE GO BRALESS" or "HANG'EM HIGH - INSIDE YOUR HOUSE" or some other nonsensical drivelous statements.

In a story on www.myfoxboston.com, Brace is quoted as saying "It's so silly. I don't know what the hang-up is" referring to the bevy of complaints by her neighbors over her clothesline. Brace is also quoted as saying "It indicates poverty if you hang out your wash."

Really? Then clearly the residents of her neighborhood are stuck up million dollar snobby bitches who wouldn't know poverty if it hit them with a cast iron frying pan.

In a world where our environment is constantly being destroyed by our failure to consistently recycle, pollutants being pumped into our atmosphere by the millions of gallons and slowly poking holes in our ozone, and our forests being destroyed by greedy builders who care nothing about destroying habitats of endangered species, the residents of Brace's Concord, Massachusetts neighborhood are bitching about a clothesline.

C'mon people. If you don't like it, don't look! And it's not like Brace's clothes are hanging out there 24/7 365. If I could do it, I would.

My own Mom used to hang out our clothes in the summertime when I was growing up in Vermont and when I put on my clothes, the warmth of the sun wrapped itself around me like a safe cocoon and I was surrounded by the familiar smells of summer. OK, a time or two a stray ladybug crawled out of my shorts or my sleeveless shirts but that didn't bother me at all.

But this is beyond petty and ridiculous. There are far more important things in our world to complain about that someones "unmentionables."

If I were Peggy Brace, I'd hammer a really big sign into the ground - on her property of course - proclaiming the legendary words of one Bart Simpson:

"EAT MY SHORTS."