Because They Weren’t Blue

 

At Marygrove, in mid-October of my junior year, Jeff asked me to wear his fraternity pin. I wore it with pride. Our relationship was still new, and it was an exhilarating time. 

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Jeff was pledge master of his fraternity, and we had only been pinned a couple of weeks when it was hell weekend—initiation—for his pledges. Saturday night was the big scavenger hunt. Jeff met with the pledges at the fraternity house at 9 p.m. and gave them their list. They were to collect everything and have it back to him in the wee hours of the morning. 

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After Jeff sent them on their way, he came to Marygrove to pick me up and take me to the drive-in movie. At the drive-in, he pulled a copy of the scavenger list from the glove box and showed it to me. We were laughing at some of the crazy things on the list like a photo of the pledges with a playboy bunny at the Detroit Playboy Club, an ostrich feather, and a cocktail napkin from the Top of the Flame restaurant. But the funniest thing on the list was a blue bra and panties. We had a good laugh, wondering where they were going to get them. 

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Meanwhile, the pledges were at Marygrove, asking my roommate, Mary Lee, for help. She went through my underwear drawer and found a very old, ratty bra and panties that had originally been white, but had come back discolored blue from the college laundry. She gave them to the pledges, who were especially thrilled when they saw my name on the sewn-in tags. 

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When I came in from my date, Mary Lee couldn’t contain her glee, and told me what she had done. I was horrified. I asked her which undies she had given them—I was fond of lacy, racy, undies and imagined the pledges holding up a lace bra and a ruffly pair of bikini panties. When she told them she gave them the old, ugly, raggedy ones, I was mortified! “How could you do this to me?” I asked her. “Why didn’t you give them a frilly set?” 

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Her answer: “Because they weren’t blue.”

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The next morning, Jeff paged me. When I went down to the lobby, I hung my head and didn’t want to look at him. He solemnly handed me a brown paper bag, turned on his heel and left.

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We never spoke of it again.