Tights are an awful burden. On one hand, summer should render them de trop. On t’other, my legs are the unwholesome shade of reconstituted ham and develop a charming mottled patina in the chill rain of June. On my extraneous third hand, I should love my legs as they are and am letting down the sisterhood through reactionary insistance on sheathing them in yummy beige nylon. But hose I will have and its awfully shame-making, especially as they ladder so fast- one always seems to be getting entangled in a bicycle or becoming too enthusiastic in scratching an insect bite.
Suffice to say they need recycling. One can make a grass head, but they are creepy and weird. I have a vague and unpleasant memory of my grandmother keeping old bits of soap in a tight leg tied to the sink as some kind of vile handwashing device. It’s not the war anymore and those two unspeakable ideas will only recycle about a third of a week’s destroyed tights. Therefore I was delighted to discover that an interweb based tights emporium will deal with the blasted objets for you, by shipping them off for use on a fistula ward in Ethiopia. It’s all a bit patriarchal Victorian charidee, but it gets rid of the bloody things and fistula is debilitating and horrid. The tops of the tights are used to hold bandages in place, and the legs are woven into rugs.
The address to which to send your shredded hosiery is:
Ethopia Tights Appeal
Tightsplease
2nd Floor Albion Court
18 – 20 Frederick Street
Hockley
Birmingham
B1 3HE
Also, the word pantyhose makes me gag.
