Novelty Post

The Summer of 2009 will forever be known to me as the year Ice Cream trucks reemerged. Did everyone collectively band together, watch "The Sandlot" and try to turn back the clock to the 60's? Don't they know at the end of the movie the kids get chased by a kid-eating dog? Whatever. If you want to eat a baseball glove-shaped ice cream confection, knock yourself out.


It was a busy weekend to be unemployed. Two trips to Superdawg, 1 BBQ, 1/2 hour spent looking for my car, which turns out was not towed, and 1 trip to the Kerryman, which has my current vote for "Best bar to be jostled in and not be able to hold a conversation." I'm not sure if that is a Metromix category but it needs to be. You can throw State on that list too.

I'm not here to bitch about restaurants though. Unless of course, that's what my readers want, because there are other restaurants I have beef with too (you know I'm talking about you, Eddie Geovanti).

I visited a friend this weekend who was particularly excited about two new purchases- some sort of Schick vibrating razor, which apparently provides an even closer shave(!), and some new boxer briefs.



Now razor aside (4 blades, 5 blades, it's all the same to me), the boxer briefs seemed like a perfectly reasonable purchase. They actually directly align with the underwear progression most men go through.

For those unfamiliar, it looks something like this.

Standard White Underwear (Briefs) > Boxers > Boxer Briefs (or knit boxers) > Briefs.

So yes, it comes full circle for people who have been wondering.

Now after diapers, people typically wear some sort of decorative briefs for a few years (think popular cartoon characters, Scottie Pippen, etc) before making the transition to just whites. There then comes a time where the cooler kids you know will switch to boxers around 4th grade because their older siblings made fun of them for wearing briefs. They will consequently then make fun of everyone they know who isn't wearing boxers. I would call this hypocritical, but I feel like most of life is just dealing with kids who wore boxers before you.

I still remember when I made the switch. Josh Nacey depantsed (Blogger.com has depantsed show up as a misspelled word, but that's the correct spelling as far as I'm concerned) me during a park district basketball practice in 5th grade, revealing my briefs to the team. Now I think as the point guard on this final four team (we lost to the purple team because Kellerman couldn't guard Nollin......I'm just playin' Kels) this should have been less of an embarrassing moment. But sweet jesus, a scene was created. I'm sure I went boxer shopping with my mom that weekend, which in theory seems a lot more embarrassing than just wearing white underwear, but if that doesn't make sense to you, then you were never in 5th grade (which for me, is also known as the year I peaked in basketball, with the exception of a 14 point outburst in an intramural loss sophomore year of college).

Now for most guys, the boxer phase lasts pretty long, somewhere until late high school through early college*. Abruptly, a point comes along though where boxers just allow too much freedom, and the subject switches a boxer brief hybrid, known mostly as boxer briefs. My knowledge on the subject is limited however. In terms of the next progression, I'm assuming there's a point, maybe around early 40's, where men collectively decide, "I think my underwear is the hippest thing I'm wearing, and that's a problem. It's white brief time again."

*Now it is worth nothing, I am still in my boxer phase, so this progression is merely an overview of what I believe most men go through. I recall people that never even made it to the boxer phase, but instead gravitated to color variations on the classic white brief. I'm sure most of them regret this decision in retrospect. Trust me, the only thing worse than wearing white briefs in high school, was being some normal dude in a pair of black briefs trying to explain to a locker room full of meaty people how because his underwear was black it was somehow cooler than what a 1st grader wore.

So like I mentioned above, I am still in the boxer phase, so I'm not sure at what point in time, if ever, I'll go through the next progressions. Maybe it's a generational thing, like communal showers. Whenever I go the gym, I wonder at what age is it that you decide despite the 5000 towels surrounding me, I'm going to do everything completely naked, except workout. Is my generation going to kill that and the return of the briefs? These seem like cultural losses. I guess I'll never know until later in life.

Now somebody go get me one of those chocolate eclair bars.

I'm reading: Novelty PostTweet this!