We're just going to say it: pantyhose are the worst.

I don’t want to whinge. Really, I don’t.

But why the hell can’t someone, anyone, come up with a pair of stockings that are comfortable? I mean, it’s the 21st century. We’ve invented Paywave and gene sequencing and splayds (look it up). There are machines designed specifically for cleaning gutters. Gutters!!!

But.

But today, I’m walking around with a cotton gusset that’s ranges somewhere between my lady garden and my knees. The choice I face is harder than deciding if Matthew Le Nevez was hotter in Offspring or Love Child (you’re right – Offspring). Do I keep chucking one leg out to the side and reefing them up until one of my stumpy nails rips through them? Or do I just keep waddling? Like a duck?

I’m pretty sure some people think I’ve wet myself and I’m just nonchalantly airing things out.

If I see one more stocking packet with one more model without even one little, tiny blip above her pantyhose waistband, I might go postal. I mean, how is it that I’m supposed to look like this:

But I look more like this:

I'm not sure I can go through another winter.

Of course, the lazy crotch is just the beginning. I've got all of this to look forward to in the next couple of months:

• The high muffin. You know it: your stockings are so long in the torso that they come to just under your boobs. Inexplicably, they slide down your back so ... back fat. Yay.
• The twisted sister. You've matched your feet to the feet in your stockings, but so? SO??? Feet placement means nothing. Whatever you've done, you've done it wrong but you can't work out where wrong bit actually is even though your inner thigh looks like a string of sausages and might be the cuplrit. Don't bother going to the loo to reorganise them. You idiot. That would be too easy. You'll tear them in the end and everyone will be faced with your reptilian shank. Just try to manipulate your posture to fit your stockings. At least that way you'll be keeping a physio in business.

• The slider. You bought 'no waist' (also known as 'comfort' top - I mean, God who are they trying to kid???) because you were sick of your gut being garrotted by 'high waist'. But if you think those suckers are staying up, you are delusional.
• The strangler. You failed with 'no waist', so you bought 'control top'. And now you can't breathe. Parts of you are numb. Parts you really, really need. THEY'RE ALMOST DEAD.
• The amputee. Knee highs. Enough said.

Look, I know it would all be fine if I embraced my inner femme and went the clip-up suspender version. But they're so breezy around the cheek. I predict chaffing (unless you have thigh gap. Which I, and 99.84 per cent of the female population, do not). And aren't they really for that dress-up party where you were a sexy nurse?

Anyway.

I asked around this morning, and found fresh horrors.

It's time to treat yo-self. Watch as the transformation from drab to fab as Annie gets a wardrobe makeover. Post continues after video...

More than one workmate is wearing two pairs of undies - one under their crotch-draggers, one over - to try and keep their stockings up. Riddle me this: if the original purpose of pantyhose was to get rid of knickers altogether, how is this the outcome? And has anyone, anywhere actually worn their hose sans knickers? Isn't it scratchy?

Another is at risk of losing her foot because it's pierced the reinforced toe and is slowly turning blue.

Yet another is itching like an orangutan on ice, and another doesn't want to talk about it AT ALL because she suffers PTSD from years of stocking-wearing at school.

This isn't good.

So I make a plea for all mankind.

Please stocking makers. Harness all that is powerful in the world and give us pantyhose we can wear without weeping.

Our gratitude will have no end.