Fear of Underwear

Wishy-washy about Washing

I took off for Juneau, Alaska without enough underwear. It wasn’t by mistake. I didn’t do laundry the night before. I thought I would just go shopping on my trip. When I work on a 7-day cruise, to try to save room in my suitcase, I usually pack just four pairs, figuring come day 4, I’ll do laundry on the ship. This time I packed just three. My old underwear was getting a little droopy, not holding up their part of the bargain, so to speak.

I wasn’t willing to be drastic and replace all the well-worn veteran pairs. I thought it prudent to just buy a 3-pack and slowly work them into the rotation, giving the old-timers a well-deserved rest now and then. I also had to consider the possibility that my new pairs and I might not get along. I might need my true blues to come off the bench.

Once on board, I googled “department stores” to locate one in walking distance. There was nothing close except a “general store”. Everything else was over 2 miles. I’m too cheap to take an Uber and too lazy to figure out how to get there by bus. So, I walk the 0.3 miles and enter a cluttered old store front that’s looks like it’s been there since the gold rush. They seem to have one or five of everything from hardware to houseware to appliances, fabric, t-shirts, gum, school supplies, a leaf blower, and a pickaxe…but no underwear.

I decided to ask a clerk for help. A blank-faced, all-business, middle-aged matron leaves her post behind the combination jewelry/cell phone glass case counter and leads me to the very back of the store. Behind a stack of t-shirts, she reached in and pulled out a 3-pack of large Fruit of the Loom tighty whities. I stood slack-jawed in the aisle, like I’d just seen Siegfried and Roy produce a live tiger on stage. I don’t know how many guys over the years had come in hunting for new briefs, but I bet she came up money every time.

I called Cara that night, and since I had no other urgent stories to report, I told her about my quest for cotton. Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

“You washed them, didn’t you?”

“No. Why?”

“Dan?! What are you doing? You don’t know where they’ve been!”

“What do mean? They are new! They are clean. This is as clean as they’re ever gonna be! They’re bright white and they smell great! Why would I bother to wash them?

 “The chemicals, for one.”

“What chemicals?”

“The ones they use to keep them stiff. The sizing*.”

“Sizing?”

“It’s like starch. You don’t want that to get on you or in you, do you?”

“Why? What’s it going to do?”

“Well, you don’t know.”

“Exactly. The why I’m asking you.”

“Well, why are you going to take that chance?”

“Because I have worn hundreds of pairs of underwear in my life, and I’ve never come down with anything by wearing them right out of the pack. Have you?”

“We’ll it’s different for men than it is for women”.

“How?”

“Girls are more exposed.”

“What do you mean?”

“Boys are more protected. You’ve apparently never had a UTI or a yeast infection. Panties can ride up.”

“Ohh! And if the starch rides up, who knows what damage it will do? Well, that just sounds silly. And by the way, I do know where they’ve been. It says right on the back: “Hecho en Mexico”.

Just to be sure, I checked the packaging for a warning like: “Harmful chemicals. Please wash before wearing. May ride up.” Nowhere. Nothing even close.

That evening, just before the show, I was talking to another pair of entertainers, a husband-and-wife Beatles tribute act. I asked them both if they immediately wash a new pair of underwear. They both said no, but she said she could see why you might. Somebody else could have touched them or, God forbid, tried them on. Now, that’s a point I hadn’t considered. Men’s shorts always come in protected packs. Women’s also come in packs but the finer intimates, like at a Victoria’s Secret, are displayed individually and who knows if some ill-mannered, unclean wench, Cara’s words, had gone into a dressing room and tried them on and left them on the floor.

After being introduced that night, I bounded on stage and started the show by recounting my conversation with Cara. Then I asked the women in the audience if they washed new underwear before wearing them. Almost all raised their hands. Then I asked the men. None of them, not one said yes. Now, they might have been afraid to say yes, fearing they’d be considered wusses, but the evidence was overwhelming. And this was not a small sample size. There were easily 400 people in the audience that night.

I was remiss in not asking the crowd if anyone had gotten sick by wearing sparkling clean new unwashed underwear. I don’t see how they’d ever know. But I will admit this: I always remove the cardboard and scotch tape. They would cause some chafing.

* In weaving, sizing is the term that is applied to the warp yarn on a loom and is essential to reduce breakage by improving the strength and abrasion resistance of the yarn. The size can be made from starch, oil, wax, gelatin or manufactured polymers.