The underwear problem

My mother had a horrible thing about laundry. It is hard to believe that children in the late 1900s had to live like this, especially when their parents had the means to easily do better. Her rules were:

One pair of socks per week
One pair of underpants per week
One undershirt per week
One shower per week

I may have spoken of the one shower rule before, but here I want to talk about the underwear.

I can't imagine how hideous I smelled as a boy, and then compound that stench with the body odor of a teenager. This was accentuated by my mother's refusal to allow more than one shower in a week, but also became an obvious issue with underwear.

Undershirts and drawers would become stained with sweat and stink after one day. Often I would get up in the morning only to find my underwear smelly and wet from previous wear. I don't know what else to say except that it must have been one of the many reasons the kids at school wouldn't have anything to do with me.

The underwear problem was not new to me as a developing teen. When I was in the 2nd grade, I had a problem with pooping in my pants. For some reason, I was terrified at the thought of using the bathroom at the Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School. I'd try to hold it in, but sometimes it didn't work.

I remember one time we were lined up to go to music class and I had bowel movement in my pants. Passing by the classroom sink on the way out the door I grabbed a paper towel and stuffed it in my pants so I didn't have to feel the mushy mess on my buttocks. Doreen Eato saw me do that and she announced to the entire class that I had poop in my pants. How awful. That was just one of the many struggles with bowel movement that I had as a young boy. This had horrible implications when it came to the "one pair of underpants per week" rule. The morning after an incident, the streaks would be crusty and hard. I had to put them on anyway and they would scratch my bottom and stink. I remember one time my underpants were so bad that I hid them behind my furniture and sneaked in a clean pair out of desperation. This was the only time that I defied the rule - that goes to show how bad that poop problem was.

My mother either did not know or did not care that I had the poop problem. I have thought about it several times in my life (even now I dread taking a dump, especially in a public restroom.

My mother just didn't want to be bothered with a lot of laundry. In my own family, it seems like my wife and I are always doing the wash. It is a drag, but it's better than limiting our children to one set of underwear and socks per week.