A few weeks ago during the holidays, I spent the greater part of the day as my alter-ego being “Sinterklass” or, as we say in plain ole American, Santa Claus to about 400 kids, plus believing parents and grandparents. It was fun but exhausting. Those that follow this column know that I live inside this extremely old human body and I am therefore very damned dependent on others.
Let me digress. As a small child, my mother would warn us to dress to be seen by a Fireman in an emergency situation so as not to be embarrassed by holes in our underwear and socks but, most importantly, to wear clean clothes. This was brought home to me one night just before Christmas when I was twelve years old. My Brother and I were awakened by my Dad and a huge (seemed that way at the moment) Baltimore City Fireman, telling us to dress quickly and warmly against the winter cold and get out while the Fireman kept running his hands over my bedroom wall looking for heat.
It seems that the Christmas tree of my friend Richard, who lived in the adjoining house, had gone up in flames and their house was burning. When I got outside, besides all of the excitement of the Firemen and Firetrucks, most noticeable was Richard, his Mom and Dad, barefoot in their night clothes. Because of my Mom’s admonishments, I noticed that Richard had an awkward hole in his pajama pants and his Mom’s nightgown was pretty raggedy.
Just as an aside to this story, this shivering very anti-Semitic family was soon covered in blankets and taken into the home of a neighborhood Orthodox Jewish family for warmth and shelter.
Back to the purpose of this story. My writing is based on the fact that I have reached a point in life where nothing is secret to or about me, and so I will tell you that in cold weather, I sleep in a T-shirt covered by a sweat shirt, boxer briefs, either sweat or jammy pants with outlandish prints (don’t know where my wife gets them) and warm slipper socks.
On the day in question above, I arrived home in a state of exhaustion at the mercy of my caretakers (to whom I refer as my keepers) and they proceeded to ready me for slumber. Sitting on the side of the bed, I saw my right foot be entered into the leg opening of a pair of Boxer-Briefs, an otherwise normal situation except that these men’s(?) Boxer-briefs were Pink. Was I hallucinating due to fatigue? “Stand Up!” I was told and I helped to pull the shorts into place. “Holly H—l” I yelled out, “They are Pink” I heard vague laughter coming from nearby as I was aided into a pair of jammy pants covered in little puppy dogs, bright red hearts and they too, were a very lady-like shade of pink.
My nightly prayer was modified, “And, please protect me from the need for a visit from a Fireman or EMT while I am trapped in these ladylike garments! Ahmenn!!!”
I went into an exhausted sleep, woke the following morning dressed the same, was fed a breakfast of some sort and fell back into the arms of Orpheus. Somewhere in here I had a dream that I was in an open public square lying on a gurney surrounded by First Responders when one of them pulled my jammy pants down revealing my pink boxer briefs. No one laughed but all looked chagrined at the pink discovery.
And then my conscious mind, assuming there was one, came alive, and I realized the probable truth of the whole matter. The problem is twofold: outsourcing and revenge.
Had my boxer-briefs been manufactured in an old Textile Plant in North Carolina as in days gone-by, lady-like pink material would have been used in the manufacture of lady’s undergarments. But today, those great textile manufacturers are gone and we outsource those jobs and, thus, comes the revenge part.
As I see it, in a Far-Eastern country sits a factory employing a very talented, experienced oriental lady seamstress who, with a smile on her face surreptitiously grabbed this piece of very feminine pink material and carefully cut and sewed with fine stitching the fly and crotch area of a pair of Boxer-Briefs thinking to herself I am capturing the manhood of some Caucasian SOB in this Lady-Like garment that he is getting, unsuspectingly, hidden in a package of eight boxer briefs from Wal-Mart who is causing me to be paid, through their contractor, a miserly eight cents an hour despite my expertise for my labor.
You, Round-eyed Son of a Bitch, be embarrassed, I Asian Lady get one small smile. Wear in good health, actually hope they pinch!
Dear Asian underpaid lady, I am embarrassed and I hope you enjoy your well-deserved laugh!
