Semper ubi sub ubi

Hope: “I have a joke for you. Knock knock.”
Me: “Who’s there?”
Hope: “Underpants!!!!” (insert sinister laugh)

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For some reason it just happens to be Hope’s favorite word. Seriously I thought I’d avoided this kind of “humor” by having girls.

Last week Hope had a field trip to the beach. She wanted to wear a cute purple dress (her favorite color), but it was a little short. So I sent her to camp with a pair of shorts on under the dress, and her bathing suit and towel packed for the beach trip.

The story Hope told me later is that after the beach trip she could not find her underpants!!! and shorts in her bag. So she donned her (short) dress and went commando for the rest of the day. (A day which involved sliding down slides at the playground… oy). It wasn’t until much later after I picked her up from school and noticed her squirming in her seat, did she mention her lack of unmentionables.

At first I was appalled. And then I laughed my head off. “Underpants!!!” I yelled in my evil voice.

But Hope was surprisingly a bit embarrassed by the whole incident.

“Oh Hope, it’s ok.” I said recalling other underclothing mishaps and wardrobe malfunctions…

(Insert harp music and wavy images)

It was 1984. My twin and I were in grade school, and she wore old undies. You know the kind. Where all the elastic in the waistband is AWOL. She also wore a little pleated skirt to school that day, and a pair of brown boots with the faux fur on top. Me? I still proudly wore my Wonder Woman Underoos (just the bottoms). Remember those? Anybody?

Anyway during recess, my twin’s underwear fell down and settled right on top of her boots. So petrified was she that she lost all mobility; unable to pull them back up. She just stood there with her underwear around her boots in all her glory and denial. Finally a boy went and told the teacher. The teacher instructed her to go to the ladies room. And so my sister waddled all the way to bathroom with her drawers on the top of her furry boots. And I hung my head – not because I felt bad for her but because I was the identical twin and people would forever mistake me as The Girl Who Stood in the Middle of Recess with Her Drawers Down.

These things have a way of coming back to haunt you.

(Insert more harp music and wavy images)

It was 2011 when I stooped to an all-time low during a family trip. On the morning of the 2nd day of our trip I realized that I’d remembered to pack a change of underwear for everyone except me. We had a long day planned – it was opening weekend at the amusement park – simply no time to stop at a store for replacements. What am I going to do?, I wailed about my about my absence of undergarments. What I would have given more my faithful underoos right then. That’s when the husband valiantly stepped forward and selflessly offered a pair of his.

I wish I could say they were boxer shorts. They were not.

Desperate and feeling out of options, I did the unthinkable: I sported tidy whities under my shorts for the rest of the day…

And that’s all I have to say about that.

“So you see, Hope,” I said, back in the present, capitalizing on a teachable moment. “The moral of the story is this: Semper ubi sub ubi, babe. Semper ubi sub ubi. Words to live by.”
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Note: “Semper ubi sub ubi” is one of the great phrases I learned from years of hard study in Latin. It’s an admonition that (loosely translated) means “Always wear your underwear.”

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