by Marijoyce Porcelli

Created on: November 26, 2008

Crotch sewer.

No kidding. That was my official title. I worked in a hosiery factory, right out of high school. My only duty was to sit hunched all day long over a special small sewing machine that whipped together the crotch of a single pair of panty hose in minutes.

You fed the unfinished panty hose, one by one, into the machine and were supposed to do that again and again and again, all day long, until you "made production."

Not making production was a huge deal. That could get you fired, although the number needed to "make production" was always changing and was always, it seemed to me at least, unreasonably high. And this necessary quota per worker only went up. In the single month I worked at that factory, the quota was never lowered.

Still, not only did the women around me manage to make production, no matter what, they would even take turns at times sharing my burden so that I wouldn't end up ultimately on the unemployment line. I still miss those ladies sometimes. To me, they were the salt of the earth.

The panty hose I dealt with then didn't look like the ones that you find ultimately and neatly pressed and packaged or wrinkled brown and nylon thin and hanging on store displays. The unfinished items I dealt with came to me before they were dyed and steamed so they were still a thicker white nylon, especially the tops. And, of course, all the ones I got were crotchless.

The little compact sewing machine I used had two special needles. You picked up a pair of panty hose and shoved the not-yet-sewn-together crotch toward those two needles. Miraculously, there would be a fast whirring sound, the needles would start punching rapidly up and down, you fed the panty hose through and, viola, strong thread would be whipped from one end of the crotch to the other, closing that single long seam.

Because management didn't want you to take time to hunt scissors to cut the string still attached to the needles after a pair of panty hose was finished there was a little button on the floor. You pressed that button with your foot and there would be a slight but audible "whoosh." A little flame from a tiny Bunsen burner installed behind the two needles would come down and neatly sear the thread , allowing you, the worker, more time to reach down and pluck yet another pair of unfinished panty hose from one of the huge and usually overflowing bundles that had been placed beside your machine that day.

To the right and toward the top of the small sewing machine there was a dial that

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