SONG CHALLENGE WINNER!

The Song Challenge:   Whoa, HOT PANTS! Good Lawd, That's Where It's At! -- Colorado Springs, Colorado, Jun 27, 2001 -- If you're thinking about going to the mall in that snappy aluminum-lined underwear in the back of your dresser drawer, think again.   Beginning Sunday, it will be illegal in Colorado to wear aluminum underwear.  OK, there's a caveat. You can wear aluminum briefs and lingerie as long as it's for personal amusement - but not if it is to help steal by foiling stores' anti-shoplifting devices.   The new law is no laughing matter ... really.  "This is serious business," said Sen. Stephanie Takis, one of the bill's sponsors.   "We have laws against using crowbars as theft devices, but if you were lining your underwear with aluminum foil, that was not a crime."  And by golly, said Takis, it should be.  She cited several Denver-area malls that have caught shoplifters with aluminum-lined shopping bags and even the so-called "iron pants" and could do nothing to stop it.   Steve Miller, an attorney who helped draft the bill:  "I don't know if it was the highlight of my career, but I got the assignment."  Miller said the bill went through several evolutions - "or devolutions depending on your viewpoint" - before it received Gov. Bill Owens' approval.  Essentially, it makes it a misdemeanor to make, wear or know others are wearing aluminum underwear if they intend to use it to fool stores' theft-protection devices.  Those devices electronically sense when merchandise leaving the store hasn't been handled by a cashier, and foil can interfere with that detection.   Miller said the new law also gives store employees civil and criminal immunity if they stop shoppers who crackle when they walk.


Tin Hanes, Y'all by SharonA
(Tune: "Tin Angel" by Joni Mitchell)

SharonA's Comments: It took me quite a few days to bring myself to commit the blasphemy of writing a parody of a Joni Mitchell song (Whaddaya call that? An "un-original sin"?). But I have finally wrestled the angel of my better nature to the ground . . . Pronunciation guide: Macy's = "may-SEES" (I cheated a bit, there)

Vanished, freed from window-bars:
Man-wished, greed-grown crap I seize.
Kept in rattlin' boxers are
Recession's much-loved luxuries:

Dead furs from a cross Macy's,
Clothes I stripped from T.J. Maxx,
Walden's spines and Staples' sheaves,
Tucked into a hinder-crack.

Guess I'll stow them all away
Right down some undies of blue-gray.

Dark with darker foods these be,
Rotted, old, unrinsed, used some,
Blue foil combined with stitchery
To walk in, crackling, tin by bum.

Steeled, I'll take, stuff pants, and flee!
I found some undies of blue-gray.

Dare not borrow them, 'cause I
Like the Hanes y'all made of tin.
What will stop them if I try
To put a whole Wal-Mart in them?

With my cheeks, how sweet can play
The sound: some undies of blue-gray. [crinkle crinkle]
I found some undies of blue-gray. [crinkle crinkle crinkle]

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