Hungarian Goat Knickers

The bad weather finally broke today and I made the most of an unseasonable dry spell by spending the afternoon walking around Bangor with Gabby. I now wish I’d stayed indoors.

It was Gabby’s suggestion that we go clothes shopping on a Sunday. I agreed but only to placate the poor girl. She’d been left feeling pretty low on account of her favourite rooster meeting an unfortunate end in the blades of the strimmer Gabby had been using to clear weeds around her allotment shed. She’d appeared at the flat, this morning, looking like a survivor from an explosion at a pillow factory. The were so many feathers and pieces of meat stuck to her I didn’t know whether to stuff a mattress or fire up the barbecue.

By the time we hit town, Gabby’s mood had turned the proverbial corner with a squeal of smoking tires. Spending money always seems to cheer her up. She became particularly excited once we hit Debenhams’ lingerie department.

‘Ha ha!’ she cried, emerging triumphant from a rack of super-elasticated garters. ‘Look here, Chip! Look at what Gabby find! Goat knickers!’

Gabby has been going on about buying herself a pair of Hungarian-style goat knickers for so long that I’d begun to believe my own argument that they simply didn’t exist. I didn’t want them to exist. They are a pariah among underwear, the antithesis to the thong. They were, in short, the anti-thong.

When Gabby started waving a pair above her head, I knew that all my fears would be realised.

For those of you uninformed about such things, they were the largest pair of knickers I’ve ever had the misfortune to see. They were a grey pair of heavily ribbed pants with a large beard of coarse white hair hanging from the crotch; hence the name, goat knickers. Apparently, they are popular in colder countries where women wear dresses but still like to keep something warm against their inner thighs.

‘Chippy promised if I ever find goat knickers, he buy them,’ she said, thrusting the pants into my hands. ‘So, you go buy. Go buy me goat knickers.’ And with that she disappeared into a wall of strapless bras.

At this point, a lesser man might have gone running from the shop. I could have had the locks to the apartment changed before Gabby got home. But you must know by now that the woman has more ways of breaking into an apartment than the SAS. My options were limited to queuing up at the counter and putting the knickers on my credit card.

I was third in the queue, wondering how I was going to explain to the assistant what a thong-wearing man would want with goat knickers, when I heard a voice I recognised.

‘Chip Dale? Is that you?’

I turned around and found myself looking at one of my old girlfriends.

‘Sha?’

Sha smiled and embraced me a hug before stepping back.

‘You’re looking well,’ I said, admiring the figure that has captivated many a man. She was indeed stunning, wearing a figure-hugging vest over a tight pair of black jeans. High black boots and bandana completed the look and set off the stunning flame of her red bobbed hair.

‘What are you doing here, Chip?’ she asked.

‘Shopping for clothes,’ I said, a bit naive but true nevertheless.

She looked at the goat knickers in my hands.

‘Hungarian goat knickers,’ I explained. ‘Very good for chilly weather.’

‘I see you’ve not changed,’ she smiled. ‘Heck, Chip! I can’t believe it. And you’re looking so good.’ And again, she came to embrace me, only this time planting a kiss of my cheek.

I was about to do the same in return but there was a sudden rustling from a pile of discounted girdles nearby. Before I could react, something shot out, snatched Sha from my arms, and went sliding across the floor in a tangled mess of arms and flailing lacy support bras.

Sha screamed and Gabby whooped in victory.

‘Stop it Gabby!’ I cried, trying to drag her off my friend. ‘It’s okay.’

‘Chip have affair. Chip kissing woman!’ shouted Gabby, using a padded coat hanger to keep me back.

‘She didn’t mean anything by it,’ I tried to explain. ‘It’s nothing like that.’

‘Who is she?’ screamed Sha, trying vainly to pull her arms from beneath Gabby’s knees.

‘Don’t worry, she’s just confused. This is Gabby. She’d my girlfriend. She’s had a traumatic day. She killed her favourite chicken with a garden strimmer.’

I don’t know why but this bit of news only seemed to make matters worse.

‘Get her off me. Please get her off me,’ whimpered Sha, now sounding very frightened.

‘I get off you,’ said Gabby and jumped up to face me. ‘But you, Chippy Dale, you've done it now! Gabby go home and you don’t come with me!’

‘What do you mean? You don’t really think I…’

‘I think you bad man,’ snapped my Romanian harbinger of vengeance. ‘I think you have away with this woman. You make kissing and cuddling in shop while Gabby away. You think I don’t see.’

‘That’s a lie,’ I cried but Gabby had gone, disappearing behind a display of elasticated stockings.

It’s now two hours later and I’m sitting writing this in the local Costa coffee shop. A pair of goat knickers sit beside me and a hot cup of steaming brew of freshly ground stands next to the laptop I found dumped outside the door to my apartment. I’d gone there hoping to talk some sense into Gabby but she’s not answering the door and the loud braying of the Romanian national anthem drowned out my appeals. Sha offered to let me stay at her place but I think that would only make matters worse. When I’ve finished this coffee, I’ll go and try to find a hotel room for the night.

And in case you might be wondering: it’s raining again.