Miss America

I had one of those really weird days -- a story that would curl your hair. One day maybe I'll muster up the courage to write it in its entirety. It's much stranger than fiction. I finally had to ask friends in the U.S. to accept an order for me from Victoria's Secret and forward it on to me here. The mad lingerie burglar of our laundry room has struck so many times, I was reduced to only four pair of panties. One simply cannot live with only four pair of panties... And this country is SOOOO expensive that I cannot afford to purchase them here. Not to mention that I wouldn't know which brands to purchase. I have had no luck identifying the appropriate quality of anything. I would truly hate to be disappointed by making a foolish panty purchase.
But I also have to wonder: WHO would steal the panties belonging to a little old lady???
(At 52 I would think such problems are long ago and in the distant past.)
One considers: it's a stalker, or maybe a lady who finds it more convenient to swipe some else's panties -- naaaa!!!, or maybe it's a weird guy with a panty fetish, or who knows? It *is* a foreign country after all. There could be some idea with which I am unfamiliar that would make all of this seem perfectly rational.
And the city is just filled with foreigners.
What I failed to notice until it was too late was that my panty hose were also being pinched. I'm left with only summer and evening weight. And only beige panties. Very inconvenient. The situation had grown to crisis proportions. I tried making a purchase at Globus. Sixty Francs for a pair and they fell apart when I opened the package.
Then I came to discover quite by accident how the lingerie had gone missing. Turns out it's not a stalker. It's an 'activist' who hates Americans and the economically priviledged. Which apparently among some of the locals is considered to be the same thing. American women are princesses and queens; American men are princes and kings. I never knew!
Yes, wearing black I am told is an emblem of the economically priviledged. Who knew?
Part of the market economy imported to Zurich by Reaganomics and the Bush agendas where apartment rents are set by what the market can bear and are not based on notions of equitable housing. Everybody in Zurich could have experienced a peaceful and comfortable existance until the Americans corrupted the global economy. There are even posters all around the city warning of the problems foreigners will bring to the local economy.
I never considered myself to be an activist.
Now I have to pay with my panties.