With pruned and wrinkly hands I hung the laundry out to dry. One towel after the other. Who knew if there was enough time left before the clouds would start rolling in. A race lingered between wet laundry and the darkening horizon...
A flash of lightning blazed across the sky. A moment later, the earth seemed to shake with a powerful roll of thunder. I rushed to hang the last of the old, frayed dish towels and a ratty old pair of stained, sagging and thread-bare tighty whiteys... or more accurately, not-so-tighty, since the elastic had long ago worn out after too many years of wear; and not-so-whitey, since the color was actually closer to taupe.. or beige.. or some horrific and nauseating fusion of brown, yellow, grey, beigish.. something. I nearly retched as I surveyed the multi-skidmarked underpants, wondering why they hadn't been thrown away centuries ago. I wondered if he'd notice if I threw them away... or burned them.. though I wondered if I'd need a haz-mat permit to dispose of them. I mused, simultaneously hatching my plan to dispose of the nauseating man-panties, (reasoning that certainly my roomate couldn’t possibly notice their absence), and plotting my vengeance for when it was HIS turn to do laundry. Maybe I’d put nine-day –old roadkill in a sock.. or maybe in these ancient, nauseating man-panties…. But then again, how would anyone notice? He’d probably just keep wearing them, oblivious to any change. I laughed out loud at the thought, oblivious to the oncoming storm. By this time, I’d worked my way several yards down the clothes line and was hanging a final t-shirt, when suddenly there was, simultanously another blinding flash and an even more deafening blast, which shook the earth so violently that it nearly knocked me off my feet. I was momentarily blinded by the flash. When I regained clarity, I noticed a strange odor. It smelled like fish and smoke. I remembered hearing that when lighting strikes, it burns ozone, (which , if I recall correctly, is composed largely of nitrogen, a primary biproduct given off when fish decomoses, which makes it a superlative fertilizer) resulting in a kind of fishy smell. Then, out of the corner of my eye, a flickering light took me by surprise. I turned, startled; and to my amazement, the old, dirty underpants were in flames!
That was what I thought initially; but when I looked closer, I saw that they were not in flames, but were glowing! I could only assume that the lighting had caused some kind of reaction with the man-panties, or more probably, it had reacted with all of the decades of ground-in unimaginable horror, as prior to this, I had never before heard of any garment producing any sort of reaction to having been struck by lightning aside from bursting into flames or disintigrating entirely. I reached out toward the underpants to see if they were still hot. Much to my amazement, they were not. I recalled as a child, watching a TV show about a super hero named Shazaam, who was bestowed upon by lightening, great super-powers. I pondered how, perhaps not coincidentally, most superheroes wore what appeared to be underwear or briefs on the outside of their pants or tights. I pondered on this seemingly odd practice of theirs for some time before making up my mind to test my newly conceived theory that there just might be something to this 'magic underpants' hypothesis.
I stripped down, knowing that if these super underoos had any powers, I couldn't let my clothes interfere with the absorption. I held my nose, but had to let go to get my other leg through. The smell was overwhelming, but if they worked, it would be worth it. As soon as they were on, I could feel the energy flowing through my muscles. I started to run--faster, more powerfully, and more easily than ever before. I jumped and felt like I could touch the sky. I gazed at an old log and thought I could smell smoldering rotting wood for a second, but it was just the filthy stench of the man-panties. No matter. I knew my life would be different now. No more bullying. No more losing every time I played a sport. I walked down the street toward the local basketball court. I had been beaten too many times there--in both meanings of the word. Now things were going to change...
Before the basketball court was even in sight I could hear the ball bouncing and male voices talking over each other, indistinctly taunting and shouting. I stopped behind a telephone pole before they saw me. The usual anxiety welled up in me as I peeked around the pole and saw the usual riff-raff. There were Tyrone ‘Tank’ Watson and Will ‘Brew-Dog’ Brewer, who had tormented me since junior high school. Worse, there were Richard, Brad, Allen and ‘Tiny’ Tim Beecham, who’d frequently beaten me and/or thrown me in whatever refuse receptacle that happened to be convenient… not to mention the occasional ‘swirly’ or atomic wedgie. I wasn’t sure who came up with the nickname, but everyone used to call me ‘Bert’, after the Sesame Street character; this because I bore his unfashionable ‘unibrow’. I strongly suspect it was ‘Brew-Dog’ who coined it... that’s just the kind of thing he’d come up with. As I stood there behind the telephone pole, I flashed back to the time that, as a freshman in high school, I’d tried to trim my unibrow and accidentally shaved off the entire center half of both of my eyebrows. In desperation, I’d tried to draw them back in with a black permanent marker with disastrous results. The uneven, jet-black, drawn-in eyebrows contrasted sharply with my own naturally fair skin and red hair, eyelashes and eyebrows. I remember desperately begging my mother to let me stay home, but she refused, suggesting that I wear a hat low over my eyes until the permanent marker wore off and my real eyebrows grew back in. Reluctantly, I borrowed dad’s fishing hat and prayed the whole way to school that nothing would happen to expose my eyebrow disaster. Apparently, the eyebrow gods weren’t listening that morning because the minute I took my seat in the back of my math class, Mr. Sweeney ambled over. “Mr. Billingsworth, you will remove your chapeaux in the classroom.” He said, snatching the droopy fishing hat from my head. Half the class was already looking at me, and as soon as the hat was off and the half who were already looking started laughing, prompting the rest of the class to look. Unfortunately ‘Brew-Dog’ was in that class… He wasn’t really a bully, he just had a knack for making one feel stupid and for some reason, people followed him… ‘Brew-Dog’ was practically falling on the floor laughing at me, which had the effect of simultaneously making me feel even stupider than I did already and inciting even more laughter and ridicule from the rest of the class. Mr. Sweeny kindly smashed the fishing hat back onto my head, unfortunately it was too late to avert disaster and tragically, I would never live that one down. Once ‘Brew-Dog’ had caught his breath, he’d dubbed me ‘ Sharpy’ and it stuck until sophomore year… not that they’d forgotten about ‘Bert’… and then, half way through my junior year, ‘Tiny’ Tim and his minions caught me alone in the hall. The minions tackled me to the floor and held me down while ‘Tiny’ Tim used a permanent marker to draw in my unibrow and ‘Sharpie’ was reborn, lasting until graduation day, when hecklers from the audience called out ‘Sharpie!’ and ‘Bert!’ as I walked across the stage to accept my diploma. Sad thing was, even the principal, who was handing me my diploma, was laughing. Suddenly, I was startled out of my flashback by a car full of teenagers pointing and laughing at me as they drove by. I felt my face grow warm and the anxiety welling up again. Then I remembered why I’d come. With my newfound powers, I would reap my vengeance! I kept telling myself that I was no longer the campus dork. I’d go out on that basketball court and show those guys how it was done! I’d always fantasized about showing them up on the basketball court.. or the football field or the spelling bee… something ...anything... and now, with my magical man-panties, I finally would!
First, I would have to give them a demonstration of my power. I remembered an episode of Super Friends, where The Flash ran around and around, creating a tornado that sucked up half the Legion of Doom. I started off at a brisk pace, running in my glowing underwear, around the basketball court. Some people had noticed my underwear and some, instead of laughing, had noticed they were glowing.
"Yo! That foo' has glowing underwear!" their eyes seemed to say.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOIN'?" they yelled in unison with flared nostrils, as the smell of the super underoos permeated their nostrils. I stopped and walked toward the leader and asked, "You got a problem Brew-dog?" He started to laugh--probably because of the contrast between my serious demeanor and the old stinky brownish-green glowing underwear I was wearing. In an instant, he was on the ground, in the Boston crab. Of course, he was enraged to have my stained, raunchy underwear on the back of his head, but there was nothing he could do about it. His friends started to close in on me. This was going to be the true test of my new super powers...
Or at least that's what I imagined would happen. I was actually the one in a Boston crab. Brew-Dog was laughing so hard he was doubled over. One of the other guys had me effectively folded in half on the black-top.
As I struggled to escape the Boston crab, I began to focus.. summoning the powers of the magic man-panties. Maybe there was an incantation that would ignite the super abilities that I knew they must possess.. after all, just about every superhero from the dawn of time wore what appeared to be panties or briefs on the outside of their super-suit.. uh oh.. that was where I'd gone wrong! They all wore the panties on the OUTSIDE of their suit, whereas, I had donned them sans clothing.. what did they call that? al dente? au fresco? Alfredo?.. whatever it was, it was the wrong formula... I'd have to find a super-suit to wear under them. I continued my mano y mano struggle with the guy on top of me.. As I lay, folded in half on the gravely black-top, I struggled and strained so hard that I suddenly flatulated quite loudly, the sound reverberating throughout the basketball court and echoing off of the adjacent buildings. That did it! The guy was off of me in an instant! Perhaps that was my superpower!
I got up and said, "Alright, Brew ha ha, you're goin' down." I bum rushed him and put him in the Boston crab, just like I had imagined. It was a dream come true!
But it turns out that the only reason I was able to get him into that hold in the first place was the fact that he was laughing so hard. He was still laughing, but not quite as hard. He easily broke out of my hold and then punched me in the face so hard that I flew across the baskeball court. That was the last thing I remember before waking up, lying face down on the black-top. The original group of guys who were playing basketball were gone and now there was a new group. A bunch of white guys in polo shirts and cardigans. I knew them! They were those annoying glee club guys who used to tease me in high school for wearing Tuffskins courduroy's from Kmart.. as if wearing designer nerd clothes somehow made them superior... and there's nothing wrong with Spiderman underoos! My mom assured me that they were cool, and my mom's not a liar! I'd show them a thing or two!
The important thing was that I had sat on Brew ha ha's head and got him in the Boston Crab. He would never be able to live that down, even though it was only because I had caught him off guard.
The glee club helped me up and asked me if I was OK. They all apologized for picking on me and told me they had seen "Brew hog," as they called him, beating me up. They told me that he and his crew had pushed them around too many times and they wanted me to join them as they jumped them. Soon, we were hot on the trail of Brewster and his posse. As soon as we saw them, I charged him from behind and knocked him to the ground. I had him in the Boson crab, just like I had imagined twice, but this time he couldn't get up because my powers were really kicking in and my friends were helping me. Who knew that the glee club could be so tough? I later learned that they had all been backyard brawling to prepare for this day. Once they saw (and smelled) my powers, they knew it was time. However, one of Brewsky's friends got a hold of my super underwear and gave me an atomic wedgy. I could smell the powerful stench overtake me as he pulled them over my head. Soon I could hear the tearing. "NOOOOOOO!" I screamed...
A flash of lightning blazed across the sky. A moment later, the earth seemed to shake with a powerful roll of thunder. I rushed to hang the last of the old, frayed dish towels and a ratty old pair of stained, sagging and thread-bare tighty whiteys... or more accurately, not-so-tighty, since the elastic had long ago worn out after too many years of wear; and not-so-whitey, since the color was actually closer to taupe.. or beige.. or some horrific and nauseating fusion of brown, yellow, grey, beigish.. something. I nearly retched as I surveyed the multi-skidmarked underpants, wondering why they hadn't been thrown away centuries ago. I wondered if he'd notice if I threw them away... or burned them.. though I wondered if I'd need a haz-mat permit to dispose of them. I mused, simultaneously hatching my plan to dispose of the nauseating man-panties, (reasoning that certainly my roomate couldn’t possibly notice their absence), and plotting my vengeance for when it was HIS turn to do laundry. Maybe I’d put nine-day –old roadkill in a sock.. or maybe in these ancient, nauseating man-panties…. But then again, how would anyone notice? He’d probably just keep wearing them, oblivious to any change. I laughed out loud at the thought, oblivious to the oncoming storm. By this time, I’d worked my way several yards down the clothes line and was hanging a final t-shirt, when suddenly there was, simultanously another blinding flash and an even more deafening blast, which shook the earth so violently that it nearly knocked me off my feet. I was momentarily blinded by the flash. When I regained clarity, I noticed a strange odor. It smelled like fish and smoke. I remembered hearing that when lighting strikes, it burns ozone, (which , if I recall correctly, is composed largely of nitrogen, a primary biproduct given off when fish decomoses, which makes it a superlative fertilizer) resulting in a kind of fishy smell. Then, out of the corner of my eye, a flickering light took me by surprise. I turned, startled; and to my amazement, the old, dirty underpants were in flames!
ReplyDeleteThat was what I thought initially; but when I looked closer, I saw that they were not in flames, but were glowing!
ReplyDeleteI could only assume that the lighting had caused some kind of reaction with the man-panties, or more probably, it had reacted with all of the decades of ground-in unimaginable horror, as prior to this, I had never before heard of any garment producing any sort of reaction to having been struck by lightning aside from bursting into flames or disintigrating entirely.
I reached out toward the underpants to see if they were still hot. Much to my amazement, they were not.
I recalled as a child, watching a TV show about a super hero named Shazaam, who was bestowed upon by lightening, great super-powers. I pondered how, perhaps not coincidentally, most superheroes wore what appeared to be underwear or briefs on the outside of their pants or tights. I pondered on this seemingly odd practice of theirs for some time before making up my mind to test my newly conceived theory that there just might be something to this 'magic underpants' hypothesis.
I stripped down, knowing that if these super underoos had any powers, I couldn't let my clothes interfere with the absorption. I held my nose, but had to let go to get my other leg through. The smell was overwhelming, but if they worked, it would be worth it. As soon as they were on, I could feel the energy flowing through my muscles. I started to run--faster, more powerfully, and more easily than ever before. I jumped and felt like I could touch the sky. I gazed at an old log and thought I could smell smoldering rotting wood for a second, but it was just the filthy stench of the man-panties. No matter. I knew my life would be different now. No more bullying. No more losing every time I played a sport. I walked down the street toward the local basketball court. I had been beaten too many times there--in both meanings of the word. Now things were going to change...
ReplyDeleteBefore the basketball court was even in sight I could hear the ball bouncing and male voices talking over each other, indistinctly taunting and shouting.
ReplyDeleteI stopped behind a telephone pole before they saw me. The usual anxiety welled up in me as I peeked around the pole and saw the usual riff-raff. There were Tyrone ‘Tank’ Watson and Will ‘Brew-Dog’ Brewer, who had tormented me since junior high school. Worse, there were Richard, Brad, Allen and ‘Tiny’ Tim Beecham, who’d frequently beaten me and/or thrown me in whatever refuse receptacle that happened to be convenient… not to mention the occasional ‘swirly’ or atomic wedgie. I wasn’t sure who came up with the nickname, but everyone used to call me ‘Bert’, after the Sesame Street character; this because I bore his unfashionable ‘unibrow’. I strongly suspect it was ‘Brew-Dog’ who coined it... that’s just the kind of thing he’d come up with.
As I stood there behind the telephone pole, I flashed back to the time that, as a freshman in high school, I’d tried to trim my unibrow and accidentally shaved off the entire center half of both of my eyebrows. In desperation, I’d tried to draw them back in with a black permanent marker with disastrous results. The uneven, jet-black, drawn-in eyebrows contrasted sharply with my own naturally fair skin and red hair, eyelashes and eyebrows. I remember desperately begging my mother to let me stay home, but she refused, suggesting that I wear a hat low over my eyes until the permanent marker wore off and my real eyebrows grew back in. Reluctantly, I borrowed dad’s fishing hat and prayed the whole way to school that nothing would happen to expose my eyebrow disaster. Apparently, the eyebrow gods weren’t listening that morning because the minute I took my seat in the back of my math class, Mr. Sweeney ambled over.
“Mr. Billingsworth, you will remove your chapeaux in the classroom.” He said, snatching the droopy fishing hat from my head. Half the class was already looking at me, and as soon as the hat was off and the half who were already looking started laughing, prompting the rest of the class to look. Unfortunately ‘Brew-Dog’ was in that class… He wasn’t really a bully, he just had a knack for making one feel stupid and for some reason, people followed him… ‘Brew-Dog’ was practically falling on the floor laughing at me, which had the effect of simultaneously making me feel even stupider than I did already and inciting even more laughter and ridicule from the rest of the class. Mr. Sweeny kindly smashed the fishing hat back onto my head, unfortunately it was too late to avert disaster and tragically, I would never live that one down. Once ‘Brew-Dog’ had caught his breath, he’d dubbed me ‘ Sharpy’ and it stuck until sophomore year… not that they’d forgotten about ‘Bert’… and then, half way through my junior year, ‘Tiny’ Tim and his minions caught me alone in the hall. The minions tackled me to the floor and held me down while ‘Tiny’ Tim used a permanent marker to draw in my unibrow and ‘Sharpie’ was reborn, lasting until graduation day, when hecklers from the audience called out ‘Sharpie!’ and ‘Bert!’ as I walked across the stage to accept my diploma. Sad thing was, even the principal, who was handing me my diploma, was laughing.
Suddenly, I was startled out of my flashback by a car full of teenagers pointing and laughing at me as they drove by. I felt my face grow warm and the anxiety welling up again. Then I remembered why I’d come. With my newfound powers, I would reap my vengeance! I kept telling myself that I was no longer the campus dork. I’d go out on that basketball court and show those guys how it was done! I’d always fantasized about showing them up on the basketball court.. or the football field or the spelling bee… something ...anything... and now, with my magical man-panties, I finally would!
First, I would have to give them a demonstration of my power. I remembered an episode of Super Friends, where The Flash ran around and around, creating a tornado that sucked up half the Legion of Doom. I started off at a brisk pace, running in my glowing underwear, around the basketball court. Some people had noticed my underwear and some, instead of laughing, had noticed they were glowing.
ReplyDelete"Yo! That foo' has glowing underwear!" their eyes seemed to say.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOIN'?" they yelled in unison with flared nostrils, as the smell of the super underoos permeated their nostrils. I stopped and walked toward the leader and asked, "You got a problem Brew-dog?" He started to laugh--probably because of the contrast between my serious demeanor and the old stinky brownish-green glowing underwear I was wearing. In an instant, he was on the ground, in the Boston crab. Of course, he was enraged to have my stained, raunchy underwear on the back of his head, but there was nothing he could do about it. His friends started to close in on me. This was going to be the true test of my new super powers...
ReplyDeleteOr at least that's what I imagined would happen. I was actually the one in a Boston crab. Brew-Dog was laughing so hard he was doubled over. One of the other guys had me effectively folded in half on the black-top.
ReplyDeleteAs I struggled to escape the Boston crab, I began to focus.. summoning the powers of the magic man-panties. Maybe there was an incantation that would ignite the super abilities that I knew they must possess.. after all, just about every superhero from the dawn of time wore what appeared to be panties or briefs on the outside of their super-suit.. uh oh.. that was where I'd gone wrong! They all wore the panties on the OUTSIDE of their suit, whereas, I had donned them sans clothing.. what did they call that? al dente? au fresco? Alfredo?.. whatever it was, it was the wrong formula... I'd have to find a super-suit to wear under them.
ReplyDeleteI continued my mano y mano struggle with the guy on top of me.. As I lay, folded in half on the gravely black-top, I struggled and strained so hard that I suddenly flatulated quite loudly, the sound reverberating throughout the basketball court and echoing off of the adjacent buildings. That did it! The guy was off of me in an instant! Perhaps that was my superpower!
I got up and said, "Alright, Brew ha ha, you're goin' down." I bum rushed him and put him in the Boston crab, just like I had imagined. It was a dream come true!
ReplyDeleteBut it turns out that the only reason I was able to get him into that hold in the first place was the fact that he was laughing so hard. He was still laughing, but not quite as hard. He easily broke out of my hold and then punched me in the face so hard that I flew across the baskeball court. That was the last thing I remember before waking up, lying face down on the black-top. The original group of guys who were playing basketball were gone and now there was a new group. A bunch of white guys in polo shirts and cardigans. I knew them! They were those annoying glee club guys who used to tease me in high school for wearing Tuffskins courduroy's from Kmart.. as if wearing designer nerd clothes somehow made them superior... and there's nothing wrong with Spiderman underoos! My mom assured me that they were cool, and my mom's not a liar! I'd show them a thing or two!
ReplyDeleteThe important thing was that I had sat on Brew ha ha's head and got him in the Boston Crab. He would never be able to live that down, even though it was only because I had caught him off guard.
ReplyDeleteIf only I had actually sat on his head outside of my vivid imagination.. oh well, maybe next time.
ReplyDeleteThe glee club helped me up and asked me if I was OK. They all apologized for picking on me and told me they had seen "Brew hog," as they called him, beating me up. They told me that he and his crew had pushed them around too many times and they wanted me to join them as they jumped them. Soon, we were hot on the trail of Brewster and his posse. As soon as we saw them, I charged him from behind and knocked him to the ground. I had him in the Boson crab, just like I had imagined twice, but this time he couldn't get up because my powers were really kicking in and my friends were helping me. Who knew that the glee club could be so tough? I later learned that they had all been backyard brawling to prepare for this day. Once they saw (and smelled) my powers, they knew it was time. However, one of Brewsky's friends got a hold of my super underwear and gave me an atomic wedgy. I could smell the powerful stench overtake me as he pulled them over my head. Soon I could hear the tearing. "NOOOOOOO!" I screamed...
ReplyDelete