Mood Underwear

If you can't tell from the title of this post that you're going to be subjected to too much information -- more than you probably ever needed, wanted, or begged never to hear -- about my choice of underwear, then let me warn you now: you will.

The age-old question about men's underwear -- "boxers or briefs?" -- doesn't strike anywhere close to the heart of the matter, because the important question isn't about preferred cut, of which there are surprisingly many.

For instance, there are boxers, briefs, boxer-briefs for those men incapable of choosing between the two, sports briefs, bikini briefs, Latin briefs, long johns, trunks, Army trunks, lace-up trunks, front-enhancing padded pouch trunks for men with extra-small winkies, thongs, classic thongs, show me thongs for men who are extra proud of their winkies, g-strings, jock straps, cotton jock straps for men who want to feel like they're suited up for sports without actually having any real protection for their winkies, and swimmer jock straps.

Swimmer jock straps? Seriously, aren't most pools cold enough that you don't have to worry about that thing sticking out like a rudder and steering you off course?

Regardless of the preferred style, whether it be a low-rise trunk or no-show briefs, once a style is chosen the truly difficult decision is which brand to buy. It might surprise you to learn that more than one company caters to men who wear hot pink, see-through, crotchless, edible man panties, but I'm fairly certain I spotted three during my research for this post. (Anyone care to guess how much gay porn spam I'll be receiving in the next few weeks?) I guarantee any man who does wear hot pink, see-through, crotchless, edible man panties knows which brand makes the best and buys only from that brand.

Think of me what you will, I prefer a simple brief -- the classic tighty whitie, as it is known. Apart from a few crazy daring times in my life when I experimented with boxers, the brief has been my mainstay as far back as I can recall. Without them, I might as well crawl back under the covers certain in the knowledge it will be a bad day.

When it come to briefs, there really are only two brands that have provided consistency through the decades. They are Fruit of the Loom and Hanes. Now, Hanes are okay, but, much like Lee jeans, they feel like they were designed for a species of creature with a significantly different body type from mine. The rear is too baggy; the hips ride too high. It's like wearing borrowed underwear, which is every bit as unnerving and creepy as it sounds.

Fruit of the Loom, on the other hand, seems to understand me in the same way Levi jeans do. It's as if they stitched their fabrics together on a mannequin shaped like a short-torsoed, slightly overweight man with long legs and said: "These would fit Feggeler perfectly!" And the best part is my size, style and color (or lack thereof) have always been available.

Until recently.

I have struggled in vain since Christmas to locate my tighty whities in the stores. (Okay, maybe just one store, but I have an $8 credit to Walmart and that's what I planned to spend it on.) At the risk of going commando, and for the first time in nearly forty-seven years, I veered from tighty whities and bought a different kind of underwear. Sure, they're still the same cut and size of Fruit of the Looms briefs. The big difference is the color. Yes, I am now the proud owner of a multi-color pack of briefs.

Need I explain how uncomfortable the thought of wearing colored underwear made me feel? And it had nothing to do with issues of masculinity. I gave up pretending to be masculine somewhere back in high school when most guys were heavy into sports and I was honing my God-given shopping skills. My issue was more of an OCD-related one brought on by this sudden change in a rock solid, lifelong, unbending pattern in my life. After a slight hesitation that first morning, I decided it was best to leap in with both feet and embrace the change, so I grabbed the red briefs.

About one month deep into the underwear experiment, I've realized there's a perverse joy in breaking from the old routine. In the past, the first important task of the day was digging through a sea of tighty whities to find a pair new enough that the elastic band hadn't lost its snap. Some were so worn out they made me wonder if I have a diagnosble attachment disorder. These days, it's more like a game of match the underwear to my mood.

Is it a red day? Light blue, or maybe dark blue day? Perhaps today feels more like a gray day. What about green, you ask? Honestly, I've yet to figure out what kind of day green is good for.



© 2015 Mark Feggeler

Bra Shopping in the Laundry Room

So, I'm stepping into clean underwear after taking a shower. Almost immediately, it becomes apparent this simple first step of dressing myself will not end successfully.

My foot barely makes it through the leg hole and all progress stops halfway up my thigh. A fleeting sensation of disorientation leaves me wondering if the world is shrinking, or if I've suddenly ballooned out of my wardrobe.

Then I notice the lettering across the waistband does not match that of the brand I typically wear. These are Hanes, whereas the looms I prefer yield fruit. Clearly, I am attempting to wear my son's underwear. About time, too.

Not that I enjoy stress testing the elastic in other people's clothing, but it's reassuring to know I'm not the only one who mistakenly sends the wrong under garments to the wrong members of the family. Even though the boys stand far below my height, their clothes are entering that gray zone of no longer being so radically different from mine that they are easily distinguishable as children's clothes. What this means is I can soon look forward to the wrong socks, wrong jeans, wrong shoes, and even the wrong Disney t-shirts cluttering up my closet and dresser.

Over the past few years, as Our Daughter inconveniently and deliberately matured into a variation of My Lovely Wife, it became difficult for me to determine which garments belonged to whom. I really did give it my best effort at first, but now I try not to waste too many brain cells on something I'm likely to get wrong anyway. When the only significant difference between two bras coming out of the laundry is color of material, it's a hopeless cause.

The best thing to come out of it has been the indirect reinforcement of an earlier mandate to stop placing bras in the dryer. Since my underwear has never been nearly so finicky about the drying process as theirs, I initially struggled to follow this rule.

These days, I search dilligently for brassieres before shifting wet clothes from the washing machine to the dryer. I hang them on pegs around the laundry room so they can air dry, leaving me free of the difficulties of sorting them later and allowing the ladies of the house to shop through the laundry for them at their leisure.

I just hope there's enough room for all our tidy whities once the boys get to be my size.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler