All About Underwear

Ate Myra Gaculais-del Rosario e-mailed me her article about underwear and words. But with all due respect for her, I believe I’m a better expert when it comes to underwear, but I admit she’s better when it comes to words.

Maybe it’s time I write something about underwear, just for fun.

Ate My has three daughters, and she’s also writing for a Christian magazine so her article is a little bit tame. Me, I’m writing to release my excess gas and to exorcise my excess fats so this article (if you can call this that) will border on the bizarre and the macabre.

Classifications of Underwear

This classification is about the common Filipino men’s underwear but it is also applicable to the common Filipino women’s underwear the only difference being their…er…loads or the lack of it.
There are three types of men’s underwear for the common Filipino (I am one common Filipino): the brand new, the regular, and the bacon.

Brand new underwear are brand new underwear, unbroken and still uncomfortable to the …er…their loads.

The regular underwear are broken in, but the waistbands are still firm and the garment still intact hence, they are comfortable to the…er…their loads.

The bacons on the other hand, as the name implies, are underwear that lost their waistbands’ elasticity hence their waistbands sag like bacons; they are usually threadbare that wearing them feels like you’re being...er… de-wormed. Feels like something is trying to get out but actually it’s the threads trying to get in, and they don’t have enough...er…load support, so their wearers exhibit annoying mannerisms.


How to tell if someone is wearing a brand new, regular and bacon underwear?
The easiest to tell are the wearers of the regular underwear. They are at ease.
It is a bit tricky to differentiate the wearer of the brand new and the bacon underwear for they exhibit the same “symptoms” but there are clues.

1. Most wearers of brand new underwear do little cha-cha steps to loosen the underwear’s grip on the…er…loads. Most bacons on the other hand like to lift their pants up pretending that they are tightening their belts, but actually they are trying to lift their underwear to tighten its grip on its…er…load.

2. Most wearers of brand new underwear scratch the waistband area. The bacon wearers, on the other hand, frequently scratch the buttock area.

3. Most wearer of brand new underwear could run fast. The bacon wearers on the other content themselves with just trotting.

4. During summer, most wearers of brand new underwear are irritable while the bacon wearers are relaxed and at ease.

5. Most wearers of brand new underwear like to tack in their shirts in their underwear while the bacons always prefer loose clothing.

Underwear Economics

Most Filipino youth have mastered the economics of underwear. This may sound weird but based on my experience and those shared by my friends, the occurrence of this phenomenon is high among male teenagers and adults, but I believe that there are female teenagers and adults who at one point in their lives may have “economized their underwear”.

Underwear economics is the science of using underwear to its fullest potentiality and utility without washing them. This is usually referred to as the side A and the side B aspects of under-wearing. It’s really a simple but an ingenious concept that only a lazy person could conceive. On the first day, the underwear is worn like ordinary underwear. On the second day, the underwear is inverted. The important thing here is that only the theoretically clean surface of the underwear touches the …er…loads. I don’t think it’s possible, but some may have tried the C and D also. The C and D are the opposites of A and B and if they are ever used the hygienic implications are problematic.




Underwear Confession

I confess I once used the C side. But not because of laziness but because of things beyond my control--I run out of clean underwear because I forgot to wash our clothes. To solve the temporary problem, what I did was to go to the public market and bought extra large three-piece-pack Calven Klien briefs for thirty five pesos. It was too late when I found out that although the box said that the Calven Klien I bought was size extra-large what was really inside was size small, in fact too small. So when I wore them the...er…load spilled. I wore denim shorts and not having underwear is a no, no. What I did was to use the side C of the Calven Klien and the effect was amazing. It cupped the…er…load perfectly but the problem was, it felt like wearing a thong (or T-back as it is called here.)

Sexy and eerie was the only word I can use to describe the feeling.

The Calven Kliens didn’t survive the first washing. It became a bacon just hours after I wore them, so, just like ate Myra’s and her daughter’s old underwear, they are now used as rags for waxing the floor.

(“There ain’t no words on the floors” as ate Myra said. I say I agree, but definitely there are “wax bacons on the floor.”)