The Great Underwear Blunder of 1987

This is not a post about Okinawa, but rather a tribute to one of my strange "quirks".

Dedicated to Kelly and Brandon Gillotti.

A few days ago, I received "an emergency text". It was a request to come into my house and use the toilet. Further hasty texts would reveal that this friend was not going to be able make it home to use his own toilet and they were closer to my house (stuck in Okinawa's traffic) than their own. I was not at home at the time, but my house was unlocked, and I replied back, "yes. but don't touch or look at anything".  My own stomach started hurting while I awaited for the next text to confirm if these friends were actually going into my house without me there and possibly see what was on the kitchen table. Earlier that day, I had folded laundry on my kitchen table and in a hurry to leave my house, I left it there. I was truly horrified that they were going to see my underwear, and then the real panic set in when I imagined that they might touch them, inspect them, take photos of them, or toss them back and forth mocking them.

Yes, readers, I have underwear social anxiety.

I have had people try to cure me of this psychological disorder with extreme therapy, such as Paul Gillett who calls me "Princess Granny Panties" and will take my underwear out of the dryer, toss them about, put them on his head and exclaim "I have your underpants! I have your underpants".  I, in turn, come at him in a rage, sometimes with a weapon, willing by any means necessary to get my underwear out of his grasp. But regardless of these valiant efforts to cure me, I am forever traumatized by a bus trip 28 years ago where the root cause of my psychological disorder began.

 My tale is set on the the last day of school in 1987 in a rural farm town nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains in Northern California.  It was uncharacteristically hot for June in Northern California.  People on the radio talked about how glaciers on the Sierra Nevada mountains were melting. This was probably the first warning of global warning, ignored by the masses during a time of Reganomics and the height of popularity for Big League Chew and Giant Pixie Sticks.  For a child though, in this sweltering heat, all one could look forward to was a chance to go swimming.

 Every year on the last day of school, the elementary school and middle school of Coleville would take a field trip to do something extraordinary.  All of the students of the elementary school and the middle school could fit onto one bus, so you can imagine how big this town was. This year, the end of the year field trip was to go to Bower's Mansion in Carson City to use the fancy swimming pool.  The packing list for this fieldtrip was simple: sack lunch, swimsuit and a towel.  I was 7 at the time, but had learned early in life to be ashamed of getting undressed in front of others, so early that morning I had put my swimsuit on under my pink spandex shorts and New Kids on the Block tank top. My grandma had packed my lunch and I was ready for what I had hoped would be the best day of my life!

 We were probably 30 minutes into the 1 hour trip to Bower Mansion when the most popular girl in the 1st grade, Darrah Rich, asked me if I wanted to trade items from our lunches.  As I mentioned, I was wearing my swimsuit, so my underwear (which I planned to change into after the swim day in a stall of a bathroom),  were in my backpack with my towel and my lunch. Like any absent-minded 1st grader, I was so focused on the mission at hand--sharing lunch items with the most popular 1st grader in the school, that I was not careful about the other items in my backpack. After trading Darrah my spam cracker set my grandma had packed for me for her ants on a log (yum), I noticed some of the older kids laughing and throwing something around.  More  and more kids began laughing and throwing this item around.  I couldn't figure out what it was at first-- It looked like a red and white handkerchief.  Then I saw the item as it landed on the head of a 6th grader two seats ahead of me.  What was being thrown around were white underpants with red teddy bears on them. They were my underpants.  I dug through my backpack to confirm that they were missing, and yes, those were my "LOVE ME TEDDY" panties.  What seemed like hundreds of kids were now laughing and saying they had skid marks (which they did not) and the older kids kept yelling, "who lost their underoos, who lost their underoos?". At  one point they even got tossed to me, but not wanting to be suspicious and found out, I just tossed them to the next kid making fun of them as well.  It was around this time, that I remember that my mother had written my name in them. 

 I sank down in my seat and started to cry because I knew it was only time before someone noticed my name was written inside of them with permanent marker.  The underwear were now being thrown back and forth in seemingly slow motion and then they landed on the seat of a boy, Chris Baker, who was two years older than me and who lived near me and used to terrorize me daily on our walk home from the bus stop. I also had a massive crush on him which only added to the humiliation that I was about to endure. Chris Baker was fearless and I knew he would actually inspect the underwear thoroughly in order to destroy the social reputation of a first-grader. His blue eyes lit up mischievously as he brought the underpants closer to his face to inspect them, and I knew he was about to see my name written on those stupid, teddy bear underwear and everyone would know that they were mine! I would be the laughing stock of Antelope Elementary School and probably would have to drown myself at the pool that day at Bower's Mansion in order to avoid a lifetime of ridicule and mockery.  Just at the moment that this bully of a third grader was about to realize my secret, an even bigger, meaner bully snagged them out of his hand and tossed them out of one of the bus windows. There was a symphony of malevolent laughter as my underwear took flight. I joined in laughing amongst the rest, so that I would never be found out and even poked my head out of a window to get a good look at the liberated underpants as they lost the battle to gravity and fell to their final resting place.  I had never felt greater relief as watching my teddy bear undies get smaller in the distance--deserted on the side of the highway amongst the sage brush.

Ever since that day, I do not like people touching my underwear.  It took me months to be ok with my housekeeper folding them, and even when I see her in my house, I cannot make eye-contact with her because I am afraid she is going to say the Japanese word for underwear to me. I am also afraid if I come home early on a house-keeping day she might be wearing them on her head.  I know these are irrational thoughts, but those of you who know me know that I have a bit of an overactive imagination.

Luckily for me last week when I got the "emergency text", it was such an emergency that my good friend did not even make it here, but rather had to stop at a Family Mart to relieve himself, which in my opinion is a much better choice as Japanese toilets in convenience stores have bidet functions, seat heaters, and even play music.  My toilet merely flushes.

 Happy Easter!

Since posting this blog I have received at least 5 threats by "friends" who state that they plan to give me gifts of piles of underoos, force me to wear men's 4XL underwear in front of them, and that if I ever leave town they are going to come into my home and put all of my underpants on their head and make a youtube video. This only goes to show that I surround myself with horrible people.