THE NAKED TRUTH
I don’t know how the term commando came to mean sans
underwear but the naked truth is I have very much experience at being a
commando. Not a seal team 6 kind of commando, I doubt I have or ever had the
strength to go there. I have no memory of going without diaper or tighty whiteys
as a wee bairn. My folks would have gone commando all over my ass at the
thought of me not wearing purchased underwear. It was the military. Yep those
white Navy issued skivvies, as they were called, that prompted me to let them by
the wayside fall. And fell they did, I never even kept an emergency pair in my
kit, even though those dress blue thirteen button fully woolen trousers were a
true test of my commando training, especially standing in formation in the well
buttoned hatch when it was raining and the damn things made everywhere itch at
a time you positively couldn’t move to scratch.
Besides doing laundry was so much less of a chore not having to separate my colored and whites anymore. I was smart, pretty bright if you ask me because most days in my dungarees I worked away coolly and comfortably. When I was discharged, I was firmly entrenched in commando team 1, so much so I didn’t even own a pair for thirty plus years under the sun. I walked, I worked, I went to every wedding and funeral, underneath my pants completely nude. Now here’s the thing, do you think that crude? when I was younger it was intentional to never wear the things, then as I got older and everywhere from my toes to my hair began to sag, I had to relent and quit the team and now today I must own about thirty pair.
I have stretched out waistbands and holey ones, black, blue, brown (the best for reasons I won’t explain) some that fit just right like a glove on a hand and others that simply with my belly, refuse to stand in their meant to be place. Such is the history of my commando days to date but I have some worries about the future of my warrior me. See, I am naked ‘neath these sweats I wear today. I am worried not about my nudity that no one sees except the old lady (who’s used to the scene) and me; but the reason I rejoined the commando team is after nearly a decade of one hundred percent cotton decadence on underwear cloud nine, after a shower I simply forgot to put on mine.
Oh the horror of the future I envision when incontinence and leaks truly catch up to me. What will I look like as a man who walks around with spots of pee on my pants trying to hide it with a hammy hand? Oh shit! All who see me, especially my friends, will start to yak and talk amongst themselves about my need for Depends©. I know there is no shame in wearing the things if you’re sick or like my elder siblings, very, very, very old, but damn it for more than half my life I was a commando no matter the heat or cold, in charge and capable but now with my memory of how to get dressed escaping me, I believe I have finally found a fear never on my table to haunt me (not to mention all them who might see what they’d see if they check the back of my commando slacks.)
So I have come up with a solution for my growing forgetfulness, a resolution, a full court press. I am going to get a pair tattooed to ever remind me there are some wars already lost, and I shouldn’t let my flagging memory up the cost of something so easily preventable, an embarrassment to bypass. The only three things I need to do is decide if I should get the tattoo on my ass, what color would be the best, and finally will I remember to do it before (err the next time) I leak some bodily fluid? Aging is hell and I ain’t going there gracefully, willingly,quietly or well.
Besides doing laundry was so much less of a chore not having to separate my colored and whites anymore. I was smart, pretty bright if you ask me because most days in my dungarees I worked away coolly and comfortably. When I was discharged, I was firmly entrenched in commando team 1, so much so I didn’t even own a pair for thirty plus years under the sun. I walked, I worked, I went to every wedding and funeral, underneath my pants completely nude. Now here’s the thing, do you think that crude? when I was younger it was intentional to never wear the things, then as I got older and everywhere from my toes to my hair began to sag, I had to relent and quit the team and now today I must own about thirty pair.
I have stretched out waistbands and holey ones, black, blue, brown (the best for reasons I won’t explain) some that fit just right like a glove on a hand and others that simply with my belly, refuse to stand in their meant to be place. Such is the history of my commando days to date but I have some worries about the future of my warrior me. See, I am naked ‘neath these sweats I wear today. I am worried not about my nudity that no one sees except the old lady (who’s used to the scene) and me; but the reason I rejoined the commando team is after nearly a decade of one hundred percent cotton decadence on underwear cloud nine, after a shower I simply forgot to put on mine.
Oh the horror of the future I envision when incontinence and leaks truly catch up to me. What will I look like as a man who walks around with spots of pee on my pants trying to hide it with a hammy hand? Oh shit! All who see me, especially my friends, will start to yak and talk amongst themselves about my need for Depends©. I know there is no shame in wearing the things if you’re sick or like my elder siblings, very, very, very old, but damn it for more than half my life I was a commando no matter the heat or cold, in charge and capable but now with my memory of how to get dressed escaping me, I believe I have finally found a fear never on my table to haunt me (not to mention all them who might see what they’d see if they check the back of my commando slacks.)
So I have come up with a solution for my growing forgetfulness, a resolution, a full court press. I am going to get a pair tattooed to ever remind me there are some wars already lost, and I shouldn’t let my flagging memory up the cost of something so easily preventable, an embarrassment to bypass. The only three things I need to do is decide if I should get the tattoo on my ass, what color would be the best, and finally will I remember to do it before (err the next time) I leak some bodily fluid? Aging is hell and I ain’t going there gracefully, willingly,quietly or well.
© M Durfee (which rhymes with leaky)
6.8.2015
