A Short Non-History of Underwear
by Kathleen Meyer
March 2012
“Ye gods and little fishes!” Whenever aghast, my mother would spout this exclamation, as she did many other sayings of her era. The one that floated to mind this morning was “Always greet the world with clean underwear.” Which carries an implied coupling to (not to be given power by uttering aloud) “You can never tell when you’ll be in an accident.” Nowadays, we can add another coupling: “strip-searched.” I solved this dilemma years ago by quitting under-things altogether and I don’t suppose I’ll be taking them up again until I need Depends.

What, you might ask, has that got to do with the price of eggs? (Another from my mother.) Well, it’s one less layer to peel down when squatting in the woods. One less layer to launder, purchase, grow out of, send in tatters to the landfill. It probably requires bathing more often, which is hard on the skin if you live in a dry climate, like I do, and adds to global warming if you insist on heating the water. Like I do.

Some days, life seems like just a long string of trade-offs. Which brings me to my point. Should I make you guess? Or have I even settled on one? Landfills? Couplings? Fishes? Eggs? I think it’s the weather. A half-inch of new snow coated the ground when I first awoke this morning, a half-inch crusted onto the sleeping bag, a glob of which was melting through my hair onto my scalp above my right ear. A fews hours of more snow and hard raking wind followed, and then I hauled it out to eat the oatmeal with raisins and sliced bananas Patrick had ready.

Fresh snow? Dry climate? I can hear you thinking How does that compute? My Montana valley is green in summer only because of dozens of mountain reservoirs built in the late 1880s that impound spring’s natural run-off, preserve it for irrigating in the dog days of July and August. But each year now the snowpack droops and sags earlier; the creek beds fill with melt water; the thunder beings wake up; the mountainsides dry out; the central river eventually slows down to warm, non-fishable dribbles; and the smoke from forest fires blankets the sun, paints it a midday blood-red. Arrghhh. Perhaps you’re needing a tidy moral to this story? Here it is: Never burn your toilet paper in the backcountry, or it could be you who starts the season’s conflagration.
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And that, my friends, is the long and short of how the cookies crumble when you’re forever hiding chocolate chips and sugar in your underwear.

To keep saner than I, get out in the woods! Get on the river! It’s spring!
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A Short Non-History of Underwear
by Kathleen Meyer
March 2012
“Ye gods and little fishes!” Whenever aghast, my mother would spout this exclamation, as she did many other sayings of her era. The one that floated to mind this morning was “Always greet the world with clean underwear.” Which carries an implied coupling—not to be given power by uttering aloud—“You can never tell when you’ll be in an accident.” And we, nowadays, can add “strip-searched.” I solved this dilemma years ago by quitting under-things altogether and I don’t suppose I’ll be taking them up again until I need Depends.

What, you might say, has that got to do with the price of eggs? (Another antiquated saw from my mother.) Well, it’s one less layer to peel down when squatting in the woods. One less layer to launder, purchase, grow out of, send in tatters to the landfill. It probably requires bathing more often, which is hard on the skin if you live in a dry climate, like I do, and adds to global warming if you insist on heating the water. Like I do.

Some days, life seems like just a long string of trade-offs. Which brings me to my point. Should I make you guess? Or have I even settled on one? Landfills? Couplings? Fishes? Eggs? I think it’s the weather. A half-inch of new snow coated the ground when I first awoke this morning, a half-inch crusted onto the sleeping bag, a glob of which was melting through my hair onto my scalp above my right ear. A fews hours of more snow and hard raking wind followed, and then I hauled it out to eat the oatmeal with raisins and sliced bananas Patrick had ready.

Fresh snow? Dry climate? I can hear you thinking How does that compute? My Montana valley is green in summer only because of dozens of mountain reservoirs built in the late 1880s that impound spring’s natural run-off, preserve it for irrigating in the dog days of July and August. But each year now the snowpack droops and sags earlier; the creek beds fill with melt water; the thunder beings wake up; the mountainsides dry out; the central river eventually slows down to warm, non-fishable dribbles; and the smoke from forest fires blankets the sun, paints it a midday blood-red. Arrghhh. Perhaps you’re needing a tidy moral to this story? Here it is: Never burn your toilet paper in the backcountry, or it could be you who starts the season’s conflagration.
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And that, my friends, is the long and short of how the cookies crumble when you’re forever hiding chocolate chips and sugar in your underwear.

To keep saner than I, get out in the woods! Get on the river! It’s spring!
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© 2011 by Author Kathleen Meyer  •  All Rights Reserved 
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© 2011 by Author Kathleen Meyer  •  All Rights Reserved 
Web site design by
RapidRiver.us