Underwear Shortage

by Jefferson Navicky

I wore some pairs for two, even three days, flipping them inside out, and sometimes back again. They became see–through thin, stains in every possible area, rips along the waistband. And yet, my inertia held. Or my laziness. Or my miserliness. There is nothing so constrictive as the dilemmas that encase one’s junk.

When my wife finally convinced me to get some new underwear, it wasn’t easy. Good, simple all–cotton briefs have gone out of style, at least ones that don’t fit like poochy garbage bags, which could be my hash tag for the dire plight of humanity and its capitalist crush on our nuts. Finally, once again it was my wife who found them in the back of a chain fashion store I felt generally embarrassed to be in. I asked the sales girl, who was probably all of seventeen, if I could try on the underwear in the fitting rooms. She looked at me as if I’d tried to wipe my leaky bare ass across her white display case. She paused as the pop music blared in my ears, some song about us all being strangers. “No, you cannot try on underwear. You have to buy it.”

We bought two packs of underwear. I guessed at my size, and paid about sixty dollars. Sixty dollars for tighty–whiteys! I sound so old. But at least I am wealthy, as not all the old can boast, wealth that can only come from the glory of plentiful underwear.