Panties ... (humor)

So, I had the experience of taking my daughter shopping for panties today.

Understand - I was her single father, Dad, for the first three or four years of her life, until my girl (the collared, marriage-ish one) came into our lives.

I tell myself I should be able to handle this, no problem. Right? Good.

I'm a cop.   I have a gun.   I've been shot at.    I've been stabbed.  I can handle a little underwear shopping.

Yeah.

Not so much.

Fucking panties.   Underwear shopping should be grabbing a bag of something vaguely the right size and burying it under other items until checkout time.

That's how we do it in America.   (That's how we men do it, anyway).

So.

As I'm crouching down in the women's underwear section, feeling like a pedophile, I'm trying to keep my patrol cap down so I don't feel the thousands of eyes watching.  (They're there.   I'm sure of it.)  

And then I realise...there's more than one kind of panty.

I realise this as I'm feeling like a complete pervert and trying to sink into the floor.   I realise that there is more than one kind of panty.  

Now I realise this, intellectually.    I've ripped off more than a few pairs from girls, transgirls, wives (they're a third section, right?) ... so I know this.   I know there is more than one type.

But it's not a fact until I'm face-to-face with twenty options in my 10-year-old's "new size" and I have to actually look at them.   With a professional (and NOT teenage) model wearing them, on the cover.

And since the smaller sizes are at floor level, and I'm 6'5" - I'm crouched precariously at floor level, trying not to be obvious while I re-educate myself on what panties are panties, and which are floor decoration.

So I'm a little irritable.   And red-faced.   And uncomfortable.

And my daughter knows it.

That evil little (edited).

"Daddy, should I try these on?"

"No.   And let's stick with Dad."

"Dad, what's the difference between a thong and a tanga?"

"You're too young for either.  Bikini, or Boyshorts."

"What's the difference between boy shorts and a bikini?"

"Ask your mother.   Just choose one."

"Which one would boys like more?"

"Neither.   Because I'll shoot them if they ever see you in them."

"...what about girls?"

I looked up momentarily to see if she was joking, and she actually looked serious.

Oh my god.   My 10-year-old is carefully crafting (in her completely tactless Asperger's way) a non-question question about whether she's allowed to feel "that way" about girls.

I took a second to think about it (and to unbend my poor creaking knees), then said -

"It's okay, girl child.    I 'll shoot them too. Right in the panties."

End of discussion.   Fade to black.

And her mother is going shopping for training bras for her, so help me god.

I'm staying home with my son and watching Octonauts.   He can have his juice in a sippy cup - and I'm having beer in a man-sippy-cup.

God, just kill me now.