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Okay, so like-- the whole "clean underwear" thing.

[She leans in a bit, forearms braced on the podium, fingers dangling off the edge.]

I mean, like, "clean underwear in case you get hit by a truck", like my mom's always saying. Is it for real? Or is it just my mom? I mean, I'm sure I've heard jokes about it on TV so maybe it's not just my mom that says it.

But seriously, if you're on a gurney in the ER and they've got to cut your clothes off or whatever, is some doctor really gonna stop and be like, "Wow, clean underwear. Good job"? Beeeeecause that's kind of not a comforting thought. I'm not okay with that.

I'm totally not advocating that we abandon clean underwear, I'm just... wondering if whatever underwear business you have going on at the time of an emergency really matters. Does it? If no: why the concern? If yes: is "clean" sufficient or like, are there other guidelines?

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[ Gisela actually laughs for maybe the first time since she's started visiting here, good job Rachel. ]

Not really, no. If someone's bleeding out and we have to cut their clothes off, nobody notices the sartorial quality of what's underneath unless their underwear looks two years old and we need to bear hygiene in mind for further treatment.

But, like, an A&E night shift staple is men who put foreign objects into their anal cavities and then pretend they fell on said shampoo bottle in the shower. Faded-out panties are pretty low-grade, comparatively.

...Shampoo bottles where? Ow. Ew.

[Just... give her a moment to move past that.]

And, see, that's what I always thought. There are seriously bigger problems than someone's underwear situation in moments like those. But my mom insists.

Is it just a mom thing? Or some superstition or something?

[ Shampoo objects are some of the less weird ones, sadly. ]

It's not anything I've heard from my mother, but it's probably a common maternal thing to contemplate. I'm not familiar with any superstition attached, but it could be an American thing, and I am not, so...possibly?

Edited 2014-10-01 19:37 (UTC)

[She's heard about Richard Gere.]

Could be.

Also we're from California. We might be a little extra weird.

[ Okay that one would be new. ]

That is the stereotype, isn't it? Maybe California just has particularly judgmental doctors.

I was going to laugh but, um. This city's full of radio ads and billboards and special magazine supplements advertising cosmetic surgeons. Maybe you really do need to look good at the moment of your reckoning.

I'm screwed. I buy underwear at Target.

From what I know, LA is really two different cities: one for the image-conscious, and one for the rest of us peons. Presuming that's the city you mean. [ Gisela decides she will move back home and lock Lelia in a closet if her sister decides to move to LA.

Also, she's not a snob, so she doesn't take this to heart, but pretty much all neurosurgeons think cosmetic surgeons are pathetic. Hard not to think of that, even if she won't let herself judge too much. ]

Edited 2014-10-05 03:50 (UTC)

No, that sounds about right. There's a very small percentage caught up in all that but it seems to dominate so many things.

I think it's way more interesting without all that.

Most places are. I lived in London for a few years when I was in my teens, and it was not dissimilar; tourists and the very rich live in one world, but the rest had an entirely different perception.

I've always wanted to visit London.

And yeah, that's it: here the rich and/or famous live in one world, and that's the world the tourists come to see. Like how they visit the one upscale block of Hollywood Boulevard that's got the theater where the Oscars are held, but they don't see the rest of it that's full of tiny business trying to succeed or struggling people trying to make a living or Scientologists.

The rest of us live in a world that isn't so manufactured or glamorous, but it's far more rich, if you ask me.

I should add that I lived in Croyden, which is barely London. [ Everyone makes fun of Croyden. It's very sad. ]

I think you're right about that. We've got scientologists in Edinburgh! They are not well-loved and not really one of life's riches, though.

That's still closer than I ever got.

They're not here, either. [She laughs.] The city's just overrun with them--I guess because of all the celebrities? I don't know. But they're everywhere. Like cockroaches. Really devoted, really well-off cockroaches.

Creepy. Scientologists are really the new ghost story, aren't they.

Seriously. Skulking around the city, taking over big old buildings... some of them even disappear.

Uh, it's more like, what happens when you're not wearing clean underwear. Like do you want EMTs looking at your gross period-stained cheesy stinky week-old panties while they're trying to staple your severed limbs back on, or whatever.

I think bras are exempt from this rule. Everybody knows you don't wash bras unless Jupiter is in the seventh house and Virgo is rising or whatever, so there's no law in effect there.

Oh, Jesus, no, I don't do that. It's more like, my mom's always like FRESH CLEAN UNDERWEAR IN CASE OF EMERGENCY but unless I'm putting a few pair in my purse... say it's 11 pm and I've been at work all day then gone out after work and I'm coming home, sorry, those are not fresh clean brand-new underwear I've got on.

Also like--if I'm about to get hit by a bus those underwear wouldn't stay clean anyway, if you know what I mean.

Bras have to be exempt, you can't be washing those left and right. Think of the underwires and elastic.

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