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In the summer of 1977, I was seventeen years old. While my friends were swimming at Smith Lake or sunbathing in their front yards, I was looking for a summer job. I wanted to earn my own money so I could do as a pleased. What a mistake that summer was.

Since I foolishly started looking late, I could only find a job with a local factory that made women’s underwear.  The pay was good for the time period, and they offered me full-time hours. I had dollar signs in my eyes. How easy this was going to be, all I had to do was run a sewing machine. I could do this with my eyes closed. Oh, as I look back on my young self.

My first two weeks was training with a group of twelve other women. I, of course, was the youngest. We were placed in a windowless room with the biggest monster sewing machines I had ever seen. This was not my mother’s old Singer.

In this hot closed room next to our machines were three baskets. One had the front and back of a pair of panties, the other had the crotch. All I had to do was sew the crotch into the panties and toss them into the last basket. Easy right? Wrong!

First it was the quota. You had to sew so many pairs in an hour and sew them all straight. Sewing had never been my strong suit to begin with, I even got asked to never sew another apron for my 4H Club. I was told what I made was nowhere close to an apron; don’t even ask about the dress I made the next year. I put my mother the seamstress to shame. She finally claimed I was a lost cause, but enough about that and back to my story.

Then it was the size of the panties in question. These were the biggest panties I had ever seen, I mean at least a XXXL. I didn’t know they came in that size. My next problem was deciding which one was the front  and which was the back, then sewing this huge crotch in the middle. To make it worse I couldn’t keep them on the machine, they kept sliding off.  Then I couldn’t keep the seams straight. My completed basket looked like a crazy person was sewing crotches, they were every which way but straight, and forget the quota; I was just trying to keep my head above water.

My supervisor, an unkind woman with no sense of humor, continued to look over my shoulder to tell me what I was doing wrong. Really, lady, like I didn’t know. I kept telling her it was a problem with my machine. But after having my sewing machine checked at least four times, I had to quit using that excuse and realize it was me.

Finally with only two days left of my training period, and knowing they were going to fire me anyway, I turned off my machine and walked out. I did however wait until my supervisor left the room on a bathroom break, I was such a coward.

I spent the rest of my summer where I should have been, swimming and sunbathing. I have never laid my hands on another sewing machine, and I never will.

Later I went to college to become a nurse. I had found my calling because nurses don’t put stitches in, we only take them out.

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