Sometimes you have to say something, just to change your luck. This is one of those times.

Something that's been weighing on my mind lately is the number of Victoria's Secret references I keep running into. For weeks now, every couple of days, I find myself making noncommittal remarks on the topic, as yet another lady wants to discuss aspects of her shopping plans and experiences at that particular store.

It made some kind of sense the one time I was actually walking past said store with the lady, but the other times have been just random, three-sentence drop-ins in the least likely times and places. Different women every time, even ones I'd have never guessed.

This has to stop.

I mean, I know everyone around here is starting to come out of hibernation, and nobody's seen sunlight or flesh in forever, and the laciest holiday of the year is coming up. Shopping for slinkiness is on people's minds, I get that, and truth be told, I support that. The awesome women I hang out with, they should all feel awesome at all times. If wearing anything up to and including a propeller beanie helps... hey, I say go for it and I'll spin the prop for ya.

But c'mon people, I'm running out of noncommittalness, and I'm fairly sure nobody wants me to actually commit anything in these conversations.

So, based on the tried and proven principle that nothing dispels female interest like matching it poorly, I've decided to tell my awful-est Victoria's Secret story the next time this comes up, in lieu of any other commitment. I'm a little rusty on this one, it's been a while, so what the hell, I'll start here.

Once upon a time, I had a teammate. She would work the business and logistical side of projects, and I would work the technical side. She was rather excellent at what she did, aided no doubt by her confidence, charm, and general attractiveness. Think of a math-major blonde who could, with the addition of about four inches of height and an astoundingly orange wig, use a Leeloo Dallas multipass as picture ID. I worked happily with her for years, and regret I'm not working with her still.

Part of the stability of our working relationship was that she was at least as married as I was, to a man on whom she doted, from one of the manly professions that draws all the best girls. At company outings, he would sit quietly beside her, radiating personal confidence and disinterest in the proceedings. He'd occasionally give one of her male friends that look that says, "it's OK, go ahead and daydream about her, I'll just keep doin' her and we'll call it even." I respected that look when I got it, and realized I'd expected nothing less from her guy, though I still agreed with other coworkers who had got that look that he was kind of a prick.

She and I would work occasional higher-stress projects, where the team would be locked into a room to produce. The quarters were always too close, and the hours always too long. On the assignment I'm recalling, she knew the whole setup was crazy-making for everybody, and that it was her role to make things work nonetheless. She therefore would orchestrate steam-releasing events, like taking us all to the toy store to buy Nerf guns for the project room. (Confession: yes, it's true that I shot her in the ass, but it was just the one time, it was kind of an accident, and I said "Whoops" like a gentleman should.) She really was quite artful about keeping things working - at all times, she was calm and collected, even when the rest of us were worried and berserk.

One day early in a December, we technical types were worried and berserk, three or four guys working quickly and speaking tersely. Things were relatively calm on her end of the project, but she sat with us, supportively, quietly reading her email. Suddenly, she sharply inhaled a lungful of air, and spent some seconds turning it into a little giggle, and then a rare girlish monologue.

"Omigod, I just got an email order confirmation from Victoria's Secret. He doesn't realize that when he buys something on that account, the confirmation comes to me. Ooh, it's a teddy. I'll have to tell him I saw this, because this is so cool, I couldn't pretend to be surprised. Can you believe he's giving me a teddy?"

Of course, she's looking at me when she says this, and of course the other guys in the room are saying nothing whatsoever.

Now, I was having what could be described as a bad day - overworked, undersexed, and she'd knocked me out of a hard-won train of thought. Her rhetorical question got ground through my gears as if it called for a critical evaluation rather than pleased agreement, and I made a terse reply.

"Well, when you tell him you've seen the email, he'll pretty much have to give it to you, right?"

Short stunned laughter in the room, from the guys. She joined in, a little late, a little false - I didn't even notice that until later. I was focused on dropping the subject and collecting my scattered strands of thought.

I figured out what I'd actually said a few minutes later, when I noticed she was poring over the email, and I realized that she was checking the order to make sure that the teddy was the right size. I realized, from the mutterings that women make without noticing on these occasions, that she was finding that it wasn't.

She was wondering whether to chalk it up to men's ordinary idiocy about sizes, or to him suddenly deciding to buy for someone else. It hurt my heart to watch her puzzle over that, and I couldn't say a thing. Just my luck to have hit her with just the wrong remark.

I'd just taken a friend who had gotten a romantic surprise, and was thinking of how she would like to look for her favorite man, and made her think instead about whether her favorite man was wanting to look at her. Way to go, Frank.

I felt even worse about it a couple years later, when the divorce occurred, with whisperings of other women a part of the rumor. I hear the guy she hangs with now is one I'd find less prickish, so at least the story ends with that much good.

Ever since that one remark, though, I've been shy about talking lingerie, on those inexplicable occasions when I get the chance. I'm sure my friends all sense my reluctance, and now believe I'd rather not even think about them dressing in lacy things, even in those cases where that's not strictly true.

But I never know quite what to say to change my luck.