There is a comedic scene in Mel Brooks' 1993 film Robin Hood, Men in Tights in which local villagers joining Robin Hood's Merry Men are forced to line up cafeteria-style to receive their official Merry men uniforms which include, among other articles, large green plastic eggs containing green tights. They hen cut to a scene of the Merry Men emerging from their changing rooms in their new green tights and doing a song-and-dance number about manly-men in tights. Very funny stuff, typical Mel Brooks.
Well, imagine my surprise recently when I found myself purchasing panty hose. Now, these weren't for my wife and I haven't taken up any strange habits that might provoke a divorce. Believe it or not, they were kind of hard to find. My neighbors had all also decided they needed them. The local news even suggested them, not in their fashion segments -- which is good because I am NOT shaving my legs -- but in the weather.
The problem was an odd combination of unusually large amounts of snow, coupled with alternating periods of warming and (re-)freezing during which ice dams formed on roofs, causing water leaks inside New Hampshire homes in February as the warmth of houses melted these ice dams which forced their way beneath tiles. Suddenly everybody in New Hampshire (present company included) had to own a roof rake -- yeah, I'd never heard of one either -- to rake off the bottom 2 feet of snow or so to allow proper ice melting. The local news also suggested taking magnesium chloride -- which is a slightly more environmentally-friendly form of rock salt -- and stuff it into panty hose, tying them tights off sausage-style. We then were told to lob these things on our roofs, aiming particularly for high ice-build up areas like corners and crevasses. Did it work? I don't know for sure, but all my neighbors did it (as well as I), and he ice dams seemed to have melted. and when a few used panty hose fell off the roof, I told me wife she can use them, to further their environmental friendliness by recycling. She, however, was not impressed by my green suggestion.
