The Mysterious Case Of The Vanishing Underwear

Last week after noticing I was running low on underwear and white socks I deduced that it was time to look in the laundry baskets. My wife had just done the laundry a few days before so there should have been a lot of both. What I didn't find had me worried. Where were the white clothes? What had had happened to them? The best my wife could figure was that someone had taken them accidentally or that she had left them (also accidentally). Against all hope we drove over to the laundromat to check but our fears were confirmed. They didn't have them.

If she left them I could see the laundromat throwing them out after a day or two. After all, they are not in the business of storing clothes for people. However if somebody took our clothes from the dryer "accidentally" why would they not bring them back to the laundromat? I know I would if I made such a monumentally dumb mistake. I may not know all of my wife's clothes but I know what most of them look like so in all likelihood I never could have even left the place without noticing I had something that wasn't mine. Some men though would just grab what was in the dryer and not give it a second thought.

That makes me then wonder if they were taken on purpose. If they were, what kind of a loser do you have to be to steal someone elses undergarments? I don't care how many times you wash them I don't want to wear somebody elses underwear. Yes it's all in the mind but to me underwear is personal, I don't share mine with anybody, I don't even like it if I have to borrow someone elses socks or t-shirt in emergency situations. Perhaps other people don't think of underwear as being intimate like I do. Besides, mine were all old, some were torn and some, well, let's just say they'd seen a lot of action.

What kind of a twisted mind would see those and think "I've got to have them!" Hopefully I'll never meet anybody who will share their deep, dark secret of how they just have to steal strangers underwear. If I do I don't know how I could keep the look of horror off of my face. It's too sick to think of. More than likely the person who could do such a thing was scarred for life at a very young age. Sorry, is my sarcasm showing?

So now we have to go out and replenish my stock of socks and underwear. Luckily I hadn't used most of my white t-shirts although I'm sure there are a few that will be missed. We still need to buy some new socks for our son as well. Since money is very tight in our household it's definitely a cost that could have been avoided but what can you you? We all make mistakes, like trusting people not to be thieves with our underwear. Now I just need to find some cool t-shirts that are inexpensive. Not an easy thing to do for someone in their early (okay late) forties who is super picky. I'll try and find a way to move on.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.