Underpanted Should Totally Be A Word

Canetto wears a very specific kind of underpants. Mr. High Maintenance's brand of choice is nearly impossible to find in stores, and only after an exhaustive Internet search was I able to locate a site to buy them -- called -- get this -- FreshPair.com.

Because he just recently cleaned out his drawers and threw away a bunch of worn out underwear, he asked me to order him about 30 new pairs of underpants. (Younger women: I am speaking to you from your future -- this is what the carefree and fulfilling life of a 10-years-married woman entails.) Off I went to FreshPair.com and placed the order for the 30 pairs of boxer briefs.

First one month passed. Then, another week. That's when my campaign to locate the underpants-in-limbo* began. (*Unrelated aside: When I was in AP Art History in high school with my sister and our friend, Darren, we studied a painting titled "Christ in Limbo" that depicted Christ in between heaven and hell. To amuse us during a rather lengthy lecture one day, my sister drew a line over Christ's head and retitled the painting, "Christ DOING the Limbo". Heathens...all of us.)

I wrote a politely-worded letter to FreshPair that asked simply,

"Can you please tell me the status of my order?"

which received an automated reply with generic information telling me that a customer service agent would be in touch with me soon regarding my order.

No one got in touch with me. So, after another week, I sent another note, this one worded a little more strongly, asking,

"For the love of God....where are my underpants?!"

Again, an automated reply. But this one was followed up with a "personal" note from a customer service representative that did not provide one more bit of information, but gave me some encouragement that there was actually a human being on the other end of the e-mail address.

Another week passed, and I decided this called for some serious action, so I wrote another e-mail that went something like this:

"I've seen London, I've seen France, what I haven't seen are my underpants. Where the heck are the underpants that I ordered?"

And again, I received the most generic note from the customer service representative, with no indication that they had read or appreciated my psychotic ramblings directed at an automated response mechanism amazing wit.

Days later, as I was preparing to send a photo of my husband naked from the waist down to emphasize just how desperately we needed these underpants, we finally received a package of underpants in the mail from FreshPair.com.

Now with a happily underpanted husband,
Brutalism