Red Bikini Panties In The Laundry

Red bikini panties? They're not mine, not supposed to be there, thinks Midge as she begins to wash Stan's summer camp uniforms.

She walks into their bedroom where Stan is dressing for work. As a manager of information systems for a large corporation he must always dress in good taste, so Midge lays his day's suit on their bed, makes certain the shirt, socks, and shoes she selects match the suit.

All Stan's taste is in his mouth. Good thing the Army has uniforms.

His boss, who tolerates his being in the National Guard, has made it clear Stan's primary allegiance must be to corporation because system operations never cease, even on weekends. But his National Guard company commander expects his First Sergeant to always be available, even between drills, has made it clear the Army has first claim on him during weekends and summer camp. The result is Stan is on call 24/7 for both jobs. He's planned for a corporate catastrophe, has everything backed up, has trained his subordinates to know what to do. He's been fortunate so far. No disasters he has not been able to handle over the phone have occurred. Nor have any major problems happened while he has been away at summer camps. Plus, being First Sergeant is not too difficult because he's blessed with three competent platoon sergeants who keep the men (and two women) straight and busy. As a consequence, when most days end, he's free to hit the bars.

“Stan,” says Midge, an irritated look on her face, “I was putting your uniforms in the laundry. I had half of them in when I came across a pair of red bikini panties in the bottom of your duffle bag. Do you care to explain how they got there?”

“I don't know a thing about them,” says Stan.

Red bikini panties? he thinks. Suzie must have missed them. Talk about getting caught flatfooted. Gotta come up with a plausible story - NOW.

Stan puts on his best innocent face. “Wait! I take that back. I know how they got there,” he says as a sly smile runs across his face. “As you know, I must wear a clean fatigue uniform every day. I have six uniforms, so I go to a washateria on the middle weekend when there's not much going on and I can get away. Several other senior NCOs go at the same time. We wrangle a jeep and go into town together. We always take several washers and dryers because we also wash our underwear and socks. It's chaos because we take over the place. I always go for a beer or two after my uniforms are in the dryer, so I leave my duffle bag unattended. Some of the boys must have put them in there thinking I would dump my bag out and find them before going home. They must have been playing a joke on me, wanted to see my face when I found them. Well, the joke's on both of us. I've learned a valuable lesson. From now on I'll dump out my duffle bag on the last day of camp so you won't get the wrong idea about me. Some other men see summer camp as an opportunity to shirk their family responsibilities, booze it up, run around on their wives. But not me. I would never look at another woman. You know that. Though I have been known to drink a beer or two... or three.”

“W-e-e-e-l-l-l,” says Midge a trace of doubt in her voice because she wants to believe Stan. “Sounds like what some of the boys you run with would do. And I do mean boys. That was a very juvenile thing to do. Tell them I said so.”

”Or it could have been my boss who wouldn't cry if I was no longer in the Guard. This sounds like something he'd do.”

“W-e-e-e-l-l-l, if it was your boss, tell him that was a dirty trick.”

Midge says nothing more about the red bikini panties.

That was a close one. I must remember to go through my duffle bag before bringing it home. I can only hope Midge bought my explanation. I'll be OK if she calls to check on me because the NCOs or the boss will claim responsibility, grin, think 'I know what he's been doing.' But I doubt she'll buy the joke or boss thing again.

. . .

Ding-dong, the door bell rings.

Midge, eating supper with Stan, glances at the clock over the sink.

“Six fifteen,” she says, “who could be calling now?”

Stan shrugs. “Only one way to find out, answer it,” he says as he shovels a heaping bite of stuffed bell pepper into his mouth.

Midge sees Stan' s lack of curiosity, walks to the front door, opens it. Standing on the top step is a somewhat attractive woman who appears about thirty five years old. She has an hour-glass figure, dyed blond hair piled on top of her head, is wearing heavy makeup, a very short skirt that fails to cover her bottom and doesn't conceals very much, smacks her gum. She appears to Midge, as the Travis Tritt country song says, 'a little on the trashy side.'

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah.” She moves her hips in a way men find inviting, smacks her gum, says, “Hi, I'm Suzie. Is First Sergeant Stanley Aaron around?”

“I don't know you,” says an upset Midge. “How did you get my husband's rank?”

A shocked Suzie says, “Husband? He told me he is single.”

“Well, he's quite married. But he would say he's single if he thought it would help him with you.”

Suzie ignores Midge's snide remark says, “A man, a corporal at the Fort Rucker Army base told me he is a National Guard First Sergeant.”

“How did you know to come to this address?

“Well, a girl has to know how to track down a National Guard guy she meets at an Army base. That, and I got the address from his driver's license.”

“So you've seen my husband's driver's license? How?”

“He was asleep after we made love the third time. His wallet was on the dresser in the motel room, so I opened it. Don't worry, I didn't take any money, I ain't a whore.”

“That's comforting to know. So you're saying you slept with my husband?”

“Yeah. And that ain't all. Is he that wild with you, make you do all those kinky sex things? Does he make you put on a strip show when you take off your clothes? He made me do all those things. I didn't even charge a dime for doing them. I ain't no whore.”

“He made you?”

“Yeah, well, I wanted to please him, so I did 'em.”

“What did he do to make you want to please him?”

“He swore he was getting divorced and would come back for me in a month or two.”

“You believed him? That has to be the oldest, most unoriginal pick-up line of all time.”

“Yeah I believed him. Anyway, tell him I came to get my red bikini panties back. They must have gotten mixed in with his uniform when we got dressed in the motel room.”