Underwear backwards scheme

I'm a Twilight Zone episode


     When I was a kid, I used to think that maybe I was the only real person on the planet. All the other “people” were aliens who were pretending to be my family, classmates, people at church, Woolworth clerks…  

And as soon as I walked out of the room, or out of the store, they’d take on their real appearance and laugh their bulbous heads off about how stupid I was. In other words, I was a Twilight Zone episode. Only it was a real.

    I just didn’t fit in. Couldn’t figure stuff out like normal people. No telling how many times I was the only kid in class who hadn’t picked up on something that was said earlier in the day. – “Mark, let’s start with you. Read your paragraph.” – “My what?”

    I was even that way in college. I had near perfect sight and hearing, but still managed to miss instructions and important stuff in lectures. I’d look all over in an attempt to make eye contact with a fellow perplexed person, but seldom found one.

    I even went to a psychiatrist once. He did nothing but reinforce my theory about the aliens. This guy didn’t even wait for me to leave the room before he started laughing. 

    Fortunately, my self-esteem has improved a bit over the years. I’m nowhere near normal, but I’m better… at least I was until I bought some boxer-briefs at an underwear store. Boxer-briefs are the best of two underwear styles fused into a single pair. It’s ingenious.

Usually I try on my underwear in the store, but this time I took them straight home. (The first part of that was a fabrication.) I like the feel of new underwear. Always have. And, that’s not a fabrication. There’s just something about the encompassing sense of security in new elastic. 

However, I felt less than secure immediately after I put on my new pair. In fact, I felt as if I was being subjected to unpleasantness. I had to flee my drawers. That’s when I saw it. It defied explanation. -- Meaning, it was normal for me.

Do you know what they did to my underwear? They sewed the tag in the front of the underwear just above the opening. I’m not joking.

The only advantage I can see is that I can now determine what my underwear are made of and where they were made by simply looking down. I no longer have to disrobe and turn them around.

Of course, you’re apparently in on the joke. Being an alien and all. I’m just glad I’m able to give everyone something to laugh at. I went along with the ruse that one of you concocted whereby basketball shorts would suddenly become monstrous and baggy.

When some of you started putting on your ball caps sideways, it got to me a little bit, but I endured. Then there was the trick with the exaggeratedly baggy pants with no belt. That almost sent me to therapy. The joke about everyone getting tattoos all over his or her arms and necks is a bit unsettling for me. But, again, I’ve been dealing with it.

Defies logic, common sense and a couple of the forces in nature, but… whatever. Hey, it’s a crazy world. I accept that. At least I used to.

 But this thing… this reversed-underwear-tag-placement thing has pretty well pushed me over the edge. The one thing I thought I could always count on was putting my underwear on without having to do much thinking. I was getting good at it, too.

Now?  Now, when I reach into my drawer, I hafta notice if I’m grabbing new underwear or old underwear. The old ones go on the old fashion way. The new ones go on backwards. That is wrong in so many ways.

It’s a cute little trick. One of hundreds that’s been aimed at me over a lifetime. It seems to never get old for the performers, but it’s the stuff of Twilight Zone for me.– Oh, and by the way, from where I’m sitting I can look down and see that my underwear are 100 percent cotton, made in China.

End

To watch Mark and Brad Meyer’s review of Fukuda's click on pic.