Striped, large floral, mini floral, cotton, lace-trim, boyshort cut — anything offering full butt coverage and in a tastefully stylish or pretty pattern are a good pair of panties in my book. Bad day? Buy a pair of underwear! Stressed out? Buy a pair of panties! Celebrating a raise? Buy some skivvys!

It’s always been there. This affinity for intimates pushing me to purchase, and always afterwards, the same feeling. A quiet, but full satisfaction knowing that no one would know what undergarment delightfulness lay beneath my jeans except for me.

This enjoyment of cute underwear reached its peak my junior year of college when I lived with my freshmen year, dorm-floor friend Sue. Never before had I met anyone else so into the various patterns and cuts offered by Victoria’s Secret Pink collection. This was of endless amusement to the both of us — each of us rushing into the other’s room after scoring some particularly cute ones. We’d reach into the bag, toss aside the pink tissue paper — so carefully caressing each pair — and show off our latest goods. It was like show and tell in elementary school, but on another level. Sometimes I would show Sue a pair, and with a fire behind her eyes, she would open her underwear drawer and show me that she had the same exact pair. Then we would ooh and aah over our similar, smashing good tastes.

Later, I came to wonder: what was the driving force behind our infatuation? Surely we did not just love pinks and stripes in comfortable, breathable 100% cotton for no good reason?

The answer came to me last month, after being hit by a Pathfinder while crossing the street. The first thoughts that came to mind were to get out of the road and then to wonder if any bones were broken? was I bleeding? did I need to go to the dr.’s?

Between junior year, graduating college and trying to find the next best thing to Pinkberry in the bay, wearing nice underwear had slipped further and further down on my list of important things to keep track of.

Well, I did go to the dr.’s, riding an ambulance to San Francisco General strapped to some backboard rolly thing. With my eyes practically taped shut and tears streaming down, I could hardly see as I was rushed through the automatic doors. Just like on tv, a doctor began talking to me, the room full of interns and nurses and beeping machines.

I’m Dr. such and such, he said. As he unwrapped my head from the backboard, I was finally able to open my eyes and looked up at the man speaking to me — a man, as it were, not a day over 29 with perfectly tousled hair, sparking eyes and a wide, easy smile. Was I on the set of Grey’s Anatomy? Soap opera-looking dr. aside, I couldn’t forget that the reason why I was here was because I had just been struck down by some beastly sized vehicle.

Next came something else I had also seen on TV. Another dr. appeared on my other side, direcly opposite from Mr. McDreamy-wannabe. They explained that they were going to remove my pants and that they’d have to roll me, to check my backside. I was going to be rolled to face the other dr. that just appeared. For about 5 seconds, I forgot about the shock and pain of recent events and my mind focused in on the fact that I had not done laundry in a long while, resulting in my putting on 5-year old underpants that morning with an ungodly hole spanning at least 3″ in diameter in the backside. And this is what I thought of as Mr. SoapStar rolled me over to inspect my back and my internal organs.

This was when it became clear to me the motivation behind the panty obsession after all these years — to avoid being caught with my pants down in an emergency room with a handsome, young doctor inspecting my backside covered by torn and tattered underwear.