Menacing underpants leave permanent scars

We all know compulsive underwear over-packers, those people who lay in more than a dozen pairs for a weekend trip. Neurotic in the ways of clean undergarments, these are the kind of individuals for whom owning one pair of panties for every day of the week feels like an exercise in scarcity.

I know, because I’m one of them.

Many years ago, I spent a long weekend traveling and realized — too late — that I had forgotten to pack underwear. I stood at the foot of my hotel bed my first night in the new city, looking at the suitcase open in front of me, realizing with a dawning horror that the panties on my body would be the only pair I’d have for the entire weekend.

Now, in addition to owning an obscene amount of underwear, I’m also cautious around other people’s dirty laundry. I’m terrified of running across some alreadyworn pair, of making accidental contact with another person’s dirty drawers. When company visits, I’m always afraid someone will ask if they can just throw a few things in with my load. Don’t even get me started on the Laundromat.

COURTESY PHOTO Of course, the world beats to an ironic drum, so it’s unsurprising that I once found myself close and personal with a date’s dirty duds. He was a boy from one of my college classes, the kind of guy who wore hemp necklaces and liked to bookend sentences with the word “man,” as in, “Man, these are some good nachos,” or “Nice essay in lit class, man.”

Midway through a movie date at his apartment, I excused myself to use the restroom. He pointed down a long hallway.

“Second door on your right,” he said, barely looking up from the TV screen.

I made my way to the bathroom and fumbled to find the light switch inside. When I finally flipped on the row of bulbs over the mirror, light filled the small bathroom. From atop the toilet in the corner, a worrisome site: a pair of men’s briefs winking up at me. They were cotton, the kind that soils easily, with a thick elastic waste band and leg holes that had given over time. Someone — my date — had splayed them carelessly, in the way people will after they’ve stepped out of a pair and into the shower and then forgotten they had them on in the first place.

I faced a serious dilemma.

By the time I encountered the suspect underpants, my bladder ached and there was no way I could leave that bathroom without using the facilities. I briefly considered stepping into the shower. Ultimately, though, I decided I had to remove the undies. I lifted them between my pinched thumb and forefinger, cautious not to inspect the interior, and moved them to the window shelf beside the toilet. They glared at me while I hurriedly used the restroom.

My date looked perplexed when I excused myself as soon as the movie finished.

“Man, I thought we could hang out,” he said.

Back at my own apartment, I stood in front of my bathroom sink and scrubbed my hands, Lady Macbeth-style. But I could not wash away the mental scars. 