A cosmic question: when is underwear newsworthy? The answer: it’s newsworthy when it’s…
In March 2002, Reuters reported that maternity wards in Sweden were using underpants as caps for newborns. Why? Because when they use real baby caps, people steal them. “We got tired of buying new caps all the time,” said one nurse; so they started using adult hospital-issue underwear instead. She said if you roll up the underpants nicely on the baby’s tiny head, it doesn’t look that bad.
In April 2001, San Francisco conceptual artist Nicolino unveiled his latest sculpture: a 1,000-pound “Bra Ball” made up of bras donated by 20,000 women, including supermodel Naomi Campbell. That wasn’t Nicolino’s first brassiere-inspired work. He once tried to fly a 40,000-bra tapestry over the White House using 10 breast-shaped helium balloons to support it.
Officials in Linn County, Oregon, have banned underwear for jail inmates, saying it’s too expensive to wash and replace. It’s also dangerous: an inmate recently tried to hang himself with the elastic on his briefs, said a sheriff. When a prisoner protested the new policy, claiming that it’s his “constitutional right” to wear underpants, Sheriff Dave Burright noted, “I don’t remember Thomas Jefferson putting anything about underwear in the Constitution.”
Every July, people from all over the world travel to Berlin, Germany, to celebrate “freedom and sensuality” at the city’s annual “Love Parade.” In 2002 city officials came up with an odd promotion for the event: they decided to sell pairs of thong underwear as tickets to the subway. Available in black or white, the unisex garments cost 12 euros (about $8) and were good for travel all day. To get on the train, all riders had to do was show their thongs. Ticket inpsectors said that people wouldn’t have to remove the underwear to get on the train…but they would need to be “flashed.”
Gophers are hermits.
Customs officers in the Czech Republic stopped a car at the border and promptly arrested the driver for smuggling. To avoid paying import duties, the man had hidden contraband inside every door and seat of the car and even behind the dashboard. The contraband: 1,400 pairs of ladies’ panties.
In 1999 Russian scientists reported that they were working to solve a problem as old as the space program: what to do with the dirty underwear? Storage space is precious on the ever-longer trips, and engineers have increasing difficulty finding room for used undies. Cosmonauts complain when they’re ordered to wear their underwear too long, so the scientists came up with a solution: develop a bacteria that can eat underwear. They hope to have it perfected by 2017. Bonus: The bacteria will also release methane gas, which could then be used as fuel.
In June 2001, after two sewer breakdowns that caused massive “solid-waste” flooding, officials in Kannapolis, North Carolina, issued this plea to residents: Stop flushing your underwear down the toilet. According to Jeff Rogers, operations manager with the Sewer Department, workers pulled wadded rags from the lift station pump…and they looked a lot like underwear. “People flush all kinds of different things that they shouldn’t be flushing,” he said. “We definitely don’t want them flushing any underpants.”
Two women have opened a store in Raleigh, North Carolina, hoping to create a new market: lingerie for religious women. The Seek Ye First Lingerie shop appeals to women who want to be “alluring, but not sleazy,” said the two Baptist owners. Apparently customers like the idea of it’s-no-sin underwear—the owners report brisk sales at the “thong rack.”
Population of the American colonies in 1610: 350.