Ups & Downs

“Always wear clean underwear.”

It’s a standard mom mantra. I know my mom said it to me. She also sewed in my name and address. I would always be covered and clean in case of amnesia.

I always assumed she did both, in case I was in an accident. I mean the sew thing, that was just so they knew where to drop off the crumpled body, right? Then again, if that were the case, wouldn’t it have made better sense to sew in the address of the closest hospital?

The clean thing, that never made sense. If I’m in an accident where somebody needs to see my underwear, I assure you: my underwear won’t be clean--no matter how fresh it was when I left the house.

So why all this over theorizing about underwear?

Mine malfunctioned today. And not in a sexy Janet Jackson kinda way.

Yup. This story starts, like so many others: down a long convoluted path of back-story. See, nothing starts in the now. It always starts somewhere else. Life, like underwear has history, and to convey either to you, I need to go back.

We’re going back to last year. That’s when I stopped working out. I could blame so many things: my book, the Pirate Queen, my job-search, and yeah, even my underwear, but they weren’t the real problem. They were just excuses. The real problem was a problem of priority. Working out just did not make the priority list.

So this year I found bunching underwear enough to keep me from closing my jeans. I realized it was time to get back in the race. I’d had a nice hiatus, but all things need to move forward. This time what needed to move forward was my fat butt.

So I started working the “Couch Potato to 5K” program. It’s a simple system that builds you up to a 5K over 9 weeks. I hate running, but I’ve found it one of the best starter workouts. It’s like I need to get my body fit enough to start working out. Then I can move to other activities; I need to walk before I can run—so to speak.

This plan has you run 3 days a week, with a mix of walk and run that takes you about 30 minutes. That includes warm up. When starting anything in life, limited expectations can help you exceed your goals. It helps makes the days that make you go, “I don’t wanna,” more bearable. I find the less “I don’t wanna” resistance I start with, the more I wanna later.

Today’s walk/run was the same all week: 2 alternating 90-second run/walks followed by 2 3-minute run/walks. The second 3-minute run is kinda tough, but like any anything else, experience will make it easier.

Except today. Today’s experience was in humiliation.

Today I threw on my shirt and shorts, started my ipod and paced down the road. The first 1/3 of the mile is warm up. I felt good and active, and ready to take on the world. I was down at the end of the block, adrenaline pumping, arms swaying, legs movin’.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

That’s the iPod telling me to run. So I ran. See Rob run? Within 15 seconds, see Rob’s underwear sliding down his butt. I

’d love to tell you that this happened because I’d lost so much weight that my underwear couldn’t keep up, but no. It was just the elastic that had given up. I blame mom. When she sews my name, it weakens the elastic.

Whoever’s fault it was, I could feel the wide band creep over my butt hump like an eclipse creeping down the moon. My only safeguard was that my shorts had a better support team. They stayed up.

Now I’m grabbing my butt. Not because I like the warm plush feel, but because I’m trying to shimmy my boxers up without stopping my run. I started this run; I plan on completing it. About a minute into the run, I’ve got Mick Jagger chicken arms yanking up the limp waistbands as high as it’ll go.

Some guy passes me in a truck and slows. He’s watching me in the rearview. I think he was trying to figure out why I was giving myself a wedgie.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

It was walk time. My underwear liked the walking better. It could keep up with that kind of exercise. I continued to walk, wondering of how I could keep them from falling during the next run. 3-minutes is a long time to support yourself by your butt-crack.

I decided to do nothing. I’d let it ride, so to speak. What the heck? My shorts weren’t falling, how far could the underwear go?

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The next run started.

If there’s one thing I should have learned, it’s that underwear is a lot like life. When things are going wrong, you can’t afford to play ostrich and burry your head in the hole.

Uhm…yeah, anyway…No, you can’t do that.

As soon as I started running, the boxers eclipsed the moon again. It might have kept it to a waxing gibbous if I had Velcro on the back of my underwear. At least then the strip would stop at the butt hair .

Without Velcro, It kept going. Within 15 seconds, I’m running with underwear piled into the back of my shorts. I’m running like a toddler with a poo filled Pamper, and that’s not the worst.

The worst is that the underwear keeps moving.

The legs holes jostle around my pumping thighs, making my underwear drop further down my legs, hampering my ability to run. Now with the seam in the crotch, the underwear isn’t going far, but it is going far enough.

Gasping, I look down. On my right thigh sits Cartman and on my left sits Kenny: my cartoon angel and devil making themselves visible. It’s like my South Park underwear is talking to me.

“What are you running for, fat ass?”

“MMMMWrrrrwwrrwwwmmmm!”

Forty-five seconds into the first three minutes of my run, and I’ve got insulting cartoons on my thighs, and bunching undies inhibiting my run.

What do I do? The Cartman leg wants me to turn around. I’m not sure what the Kenny leg wants. He’s unintelligible. I don’t want to give up though. I stagger through the rest of the three minutes, and slow to a walk.

Now I lift my underwear again. Passing a yard sale, I make a quick search for underwear. Nothing. I walk on.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

This beep doesn’t mean it’s time to run again. This beep is letting me know that I’m half way: It’s just as far to turn around, as it is to move ahead. Sorry, Cartman thigh. I’m pushing on.

This is like so many other things in life. It’s Rob operating procedure. I’d love to tell you about all the times I’ve taken the easy path, but like half my blogs, those are pure fiction. The reality is, I stumble through life with my underwear around my thighs way too often. It doesn’t matter if it’s work, relationships, He-Man or South Park; my underwear always tangles me up.

I wish I had some great answer for making it through. I don’t. Today, I sucked up the last legs of the run and made it home with more embarrassment. In life I do the same thing. I plow through.

The plowing is easier with my faith. I mean I’ve got God to get me through, I know that eventually I’ll be able to stop and pull up my underwear. Sure, I know. It’s an imperfect metaphor, but it’s what I’ve got.

I’ve got an imperfect life, but I’m plowing through. And if I ever get lost, I’ve got my name in the back of my underwear. I’ll figure out where I belong.