10 Not So Hot Places To Lose Your Underwear

• The Laundromat

Not long after we were married, our washer broke. If I had only known that all things mechanical would break down once we took ownership, dozens and dozens of times over the next 30 years, I might have .... well, hindsight is 20/20, right? I stayed with him, despite the karma...

Our pile of laundry was huge, so we took our clothes to the laundromat, like most normal people. I had no reason to suspect anything would happen. We unloaded the car and lined up our machines. It was Saturday and the place was crowded with people who evidently also had bad karma with things mechanical.

We were going to have to wait for a washer, and since we'd already unloaded our clothes, we decided they were safe, and went for a root beer. We were a very adventurous young couple.

When we came back, I was busy loading machines, when Lynn let out a yelp. I turned to find him looking in all the machines, opening lids, dryer doors, going up and down the aisles. People were getting agitated.

He came over to me, and began to scratch his head. "Someone stole my underwear." he finally muttered. At the time, I had no clue how familiar over the next many years that remark would become.

"What?" I asked. "Why would someone steal your underwear? They weren't even washed yet!" I hadn't lived in tiny towns before, so what did I know? Was this common behavior?

"What would someone want with your dirty underwear?" I thought it was a reasonable question.

"I have enemies, you know." he said importantly.

"Uh, huh." I snorted. "Well, they are the ones being threatened. They don't know your underwear."

"It's not funny!: He was so touchy. "How do I know where they might end up?"

"Well, dear, it's not like they have your name on them." I stared. He stared. "Well, do they?" I had a right to know...who puts their name in their underwear unless you're military or something.

"Of course not!" Whew, I felt better. I was envisioning crime scenes littered with Lynn's underwear, name shining.

The Case of the Stolen Underwear remains unsolved to this very day.

• The Back Seat of the Car

I helped Lynn a lot, back then. Not so much, now. Things change. One Saturday, he was washing the car and I decided to clean the inside. i was scrubbing and vacuuming, working hard to get it shining. I stuck the vacuum hose inbetween the back seat cushions when something stopped up the hose. Out came a pair of underwear. Not clean, and not Lynn's. So he said, to my immediate question.

I believed him, once I checked the size and found them different from his. He was safe. However, I was not, having touched someone else's dirty briefs. Thinking about it even now makes me want to go wash my hands.

Well, we had purchased the car used, and I guess it was.

• Thin Air

I'm not a penny pincher, but I began to notice that we seemed to be buying packages of grown men's underwear, size whatever. Now, I'm not a rocket scientist, but surely they should last more than a few months? Cops do go through a lot of clothes, getting into scrapes and messes, sometimes he'd change uniforms twice during a work shift. He said when he showered and changed, his underwear would disappear at work. Someone had a fetish, if you ask me.

Hey. Stop it. I believe him. He's not a flirt. He's just absent-minded. And cops play terrible jokes on each other. His fellow officers would lay in wait for an opportunity to catch Lynn unaware and out of underwear.

Well, you had to be there. I'm not naive!

• Aisle 7, Building B, Unit 52 of our storage site

The underwear was blue bikini, complete with a used, uh, plastic, uh, bubble thingy. None of which was ours. How do I know? Well, I have never had even the smallest desire to have sex at a storage site. It's creepy. Not even a hint of romance exists on this bumpy asphalt, with glaring lights above the driveways, which are also sprinkled with old creeky garage doors every few feet.

I don't even get the spirit of adventure, unless you like a chance of getting caught. I've read that some people find that exciting, but the picture of me caught in someone's headlights with my "barely-there's" on does not get me excited.

Lynn was the one who found the evidence, and left it on the ground until he was double-gloved. I'm not touching it. Both objects now live in the dumpster.

• The Spa

No, I don't mean the hot tub at home, I'm talking the spa downtown. I don't know how it happened. I had a massage in one room and a facial in another. I was wearing one of those big white robes. My other clothing was in a nice neat pile in the room where I started my $200 tour. All that and a pair of underwear made my total expenses $202.00 Well, it wasn't very expensive underwear.

No one ever found them, I guess they ended up in the washer at the spa, but why just the underwear? You know how when you take your clothes off, you always stick the underwear somewhere inbetween your shirt and pants...so they don't fall out and embarass you? Ha! You should have been with me at the counter when I had to ask for mine back. I got a lot of looks from those in the waiting room! Guess they wondered what kind of spa this was but I noticed no one walked out.

• While Tanning In A Can

The tanning bed is a great place to be alone, soak up some heat, be blasted with a fan, and have music sing you to sleep for a 20 minute power nap.

I'm not senile, yet. I know the underwear was in the chair with my other clothes and the door was locked. I was ALONE. Why, then, could I not find them when I was dressing? I don't know, and I didn't ask at the desk, either. Don't you always think someone's watching you on secret cameras? I'm not paranoid, but the thought has crossed my mind.

The next time I went, I noticed they had a table full of lost and founds...I resisted the temptation to prowl through them. I'd rather pretend I had it all together. I decided they must have fallen into the trash can by the chair, it was the only place that ocurred to me on the drive home. I wasn't going back to see.

I'm so easily embarrassed.

I just realized that some of these places were about my loss, not Lynn's. I don't know how the subject changed to me. His underwear losses far out "weigh" mine. Back to his.

• In someone else's bed you're sleeping in as a guest.

I don't know why he took them off, it wasn't that! I don't do that as a guest in someone else's house, and I'm sure you don't either. If you do and you're a guest at my house, please don't tell me about it and check the linen for lost underwear. Lynn said he got hot during the night and took them off. Not that kind of hot, just weather-wise hot. Still, it's embarrassing, because we never found them. How come underwear don't turn up after they've been lost a respectful amount of time?

Another thing we'll find in Heaven, right next to all the single socks and shoelaces.

As I thought about the last 3, I realized I just couldn't "bare" to repeat them... so, I'll leave them to your imagination. I'll pass the challenge to you, to come up with at least 3 more places you can actually talk about, if you've shared this experience.

Do tell.