Weekly Challenge #385 – Underwear

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was UNDERWEAR.

We’ve got stories by:

• Jeffrey
• Thomas
• Tom
• Richard
• Munsi
• Cliff – Uncle Monster
• Lizzie
• Zackmann
• Serendipity
• Singh
• Steven the Nuclear Man
• Norval Joe
• Danny
• Tura Brezoianu
• Planet Z

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of SILLINESS.

Use the Share buttons at the end of the post to spam your social networks. This obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

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JEFFREY

Underwear
by Jeffrey Fischer

Society seems of two minds about undergarments. On the one hand, various pieces of clothing have nearly gone the way of the dodo. The girdle has virtually disappeared, though its descendants live on in the form of various body-shaping fabrics. The slip, too, is an increasing rarity, and stockings have started their long decline. On the other hand, other undergarments seem to have come out to play: the exposed bra strap, proudly on display over a tank top, or the peekaboo of a thong. Young men may be the worst offenders, with pants sagging to highlight the boxers below.

Underwear carries its prefix for a reason. Keep it concealed, Miley.

Commando
by Jeffrey Fischer

Bill enjoyed going commando. He liked the unconfined feel of his nether regions floating freely in his pants. True, he faced certain issues – that ugly zipper incident, or the time he bought itchy wool pants and scratched his way through an unsuccessful job interview. On the whole, however, he liked to think his genitals appreciated their freedom.

Bill’s thinking took a turn, however, at that fateful Christmas party in his apartment building. It seemed as though the whole building showed up at once. The room was hot and very crowded. As Bill tried to squeeze through the crowd, he brushed by Jenny Compton from apartment 7-B. The unfortunate timing of his erection, combined with an unladylike shriek from Jenny and the pummeling Bill received from her boyfriend, was enough. From then on, he was a Fruit of the Loom man.

THOMAS

During initiation rites, we all swore that we’d wear our underwear on the outside of our trousers. We pledged that we would dare to be different, as we are all members of The Madonnas of Clallam County, and on the advisory panel for the Big Bonsai Club. Our hair is clipped short, and facial hair is limited to neatly trimmed Van Dykes. The men are similarly dressed and adorned. Today, we were asked to participate in the centennial celebration for the city, so we’re planning for the event, designing the float, and auditioning the women applying for the support committee.

#
Jeb got several days of wear out of his underwear. Day one, fly forward, right side out. Day two, fly in back, right side out. Day three, fly in back, inside out, and day four, fly in front, inside out. Jeb was clever, and this little trick kept him out of the Army in the mid sixties, and assured him a good seat on the bus and light rail. He’s experimenting with undershirts and socks now, and writing a little Kindle, how-to book on conserving resources and shrinking his carbon footprint. Jeb teaches ecology classes at the local community college.

#
The first time I got into a girls knickers, I was nine. The panties belonged to my cousin. I had taken them off the clothesline, and smuggled them into the bathroom where I put them on. I squeezed into them, and although they put pressure on my guys, they felt wonderful. I used Mom’s Polaroid to take a picture in the big mirror, but in my inflamed state, I left the photo on the sink. My Aunt found it, but didn’t say anything. She made some double entendre comments at dinner and sang “I Enjoy Being a Girl”, during dessert.

#
I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the morning six of us gave poor Nancy Luuper a super wedgie. We pulled her grannies up so high, that we were able to hang her on the doorknob of the gym. She was stuck there until the bell rang, so when the next gym class came down the hall, they were greeted with Nancy’s display. We were all charged with assault, and Nancy was never the same after the incident. She walked with an odd gait, and never had children, eventually suing our families and the school district for millions.

#
I offer these bits of nonsense to all blue-noses, creeps, and windbags. All my stories about underwear are ripe (as Jeb’s underwear) for examination by psychologists and psychiatrists, and you’re welcome to examine them and comment on my affliction. I’ve heard them all…so unless you have something new to offer or you found a new entry in the DSM-5 that’s a good match for my diagnoses and classification, then you can eat my shorts. I am not paranoid. There is no need to be. I am content knowing where your family lives, and how to hack into your medical records.

TOM

I See France

Growing up Catholic I had no idea the amount of magic underwear in the
world. Mormon, Muslim, Sikh, Levite, Hindi sub-sects if you count Hari
Krishna hand in a bag. Priest have vestments. Altar Boys got starched
white baby doll frocks. Infants get a baptismal grown despite gender. Yet
none of these our daily foundation ware.

But Tom, these items are part of religious practice, referring to them as
magical underwear, how unPC of you.

Your on a site were characters end up with fire arms up their butts, get
real.

Closest Catholics get to Magical Underwear are brown scapulars

****

believe me after three month close is not what you want to be.

# # # #

A Well Defined Relationship Part 14

The elevator took them to the top of Wyn Tower. Sitting at a sizable oak
desk was the man himself, but behind him was a Citizen Kane size image of
John Wayne from the film “The Green Berets”. “Oh.” said Banister. “Yes.”
said Dino Mod. “I have a proposition,” said Wyn as he glided from the
desk, pass the Wayne Altar prominently displaying the triple presence of
The Duke, to the center of the room. Wyn all four foot three was wearing a
pair of True Grit silk boxer shorts. “The Profit needs an Angel,
interested?” Banister eyes the door.

RICHARD

#1 – Captured
Some time during the night, George slipped into a fitful sleep, but was soon roused a short time later as the truck came to a shuddering halt.

Blearily, he stumbled to his feet, then jumped in fright as the doors of the container crashed violently open.

“Put your hands where we can see them and don’t move a muscle!”

George peered towards the doorway, eyes adjusting to the light.

“Do it! Now!”

As his vision cleared, George almost soiled his underwear, as he found himself looking straight into the muzzle of a gun.

Slowly he raised his arms, and waited.

#2 – Gym kit

I used to hate gym lessons at school, but believable excuses were hard to come by, and Mr Taylor, the gym teacher, had heard them all before.

It was no good ‘forgetting’ your gym kit either… Taylor would give you the benefit of the doubt on the first occasion, but if it happened again, you did the lesson in your underwear.

There were rarely any repeat offenders.

Of course, he wouldn’t get away with it these days… the first suggestion of lessons in your underwear, he’d no doubt be arrested!

Kids today – they don’t know how good they’ve got it!

#3 – Life Philosophy

Harry always liked to live life to the full… bungee jumping, extreme sports and wild partying marked his youth, all underpinned by his philosophy of ‘Live fast, die young, leave clean underwear!’ – that’s how it was.

However, despite his every effort, he singularly failed to die young and now that life could no longer be considered in any way ‘fast’ – in fact, it had slowed to a definite crawl since the rheumatism had set in – his wild, partying days were well and truly behind him.

Even so, he clung to his philosophy desperately hoping daily… that he’d leave clean underwear!

#4 – Hit by a bus

Mother always said: “You’ll want to make sure you’re wearing clean underwear – what if you get hit by a bus?”

I used to wonder what would mortify her most… me getting flattened by a bus, or the coroner’s report revealing I’d been wearing day-old Y-fronts. Fortunately the chances of being hit by a bus are pretty slim and I could afford to take the odd risk on the laundry front.

All the more ironic that my mother should be run over at the bus station!

I know what you’re wondering…

You’ll just have to wait for the coroner’s report!

MUNSI

Naked

By Christopher Munroe

Buy the fanciest underwear you like, if it makes you feel beautiful I entirely endorse it.

I will, however, say for the record: Nothing looks better than naked.

Assuming that you look good naked.

Which you probably do! In my experience, most people look 30% better naked then they think, so even if you’re worried about your appearance in the boudoir, you likely needn’t be.

So cast off your clothes, free yourself! Throw them on the fire, you’ll never need them again, and live a life natural and free!

Me?

No, I shan’t be joining you. My body’s funny looking…

CLIFF

Dave knew his wife didn’t like country music, so he was surprised to hear her say that she wanted to see his favorite singer when she came to town on tour.
“Honey, I’m so glad you’re expanding your horizons. You’re going to love this show. She’s not just country. She has an enormous range and when she sings, you can just feel the emotion in the air around you. It is truly amazing.”
Lisa explained that she hadn’t said that she wanted to see Carrie Underwood soon, but that she wanted to see Dave carry the underwear to their room.

LIZZIE

The wide assortment of underwear made the store quite successful. The prices were expensive but no one worried about that. Until Mr. Vondrak, the store owner, came up with the idea of having musical panties and the male counterpart, musical boxers. It would’ve been fun too, to own one of those. The problem was the musical taste. Chopin’s Funeral March was a commercial flop and when Mozart’s Lacrimosa was added, for a tempting pay-one-take-two option, the store became eerily empty. Mr. Vondrak didn’t understand it. He wore them all the time, and he loved them; and so did Mrs. Vondrak!

ZACKMANN

“Are you wearing that tie?”
“Don’t you see it on me?”
“At least our children have good fashion sense.”
“Yes Dear.”
“Are we ready to go?” asks Connie
“Everything is ready except I left our son in his room to change. I will check on him”
Zack walks down the stairs and says “You really need to talk to your son.”
“My son, he is always your son or our son when he isn’t doing anything problematic. Why?”
“He is looking through his closet and drawers, refusing to finish getting dressed because he can’t find clothes that match his underwear.”

SERENDIPITY

He denied it, of course – refused to admit he was having an affair. So I was forced to play my trump card.

I asked him about the naughty underwear he’d been buying.

“What underwear?” he protested, so I told him… the g-strings, lacy bras and stockings, and none of them in my size.

Eventually he caved-in and admitted to his indiscretions.

“How could you have possibly known?”, he whimpered.

I suggested next time, he should do his shopping out of town – that way he might avoid picking a store where my best friend happened to be the sales assistant!

SINGH

30
When he tried to visualise some place of refuge, he remembered a village bordering the vast estuarine mangrove Sundarbans. Here they had always practised natural conservation: fishing with a large guage net, leaving one third of the honeycomb for the bees, only cutting woodd from the upper parts of certain trees. Those trips during childhood had been some of his happiest memories, although the place was not without its challenges and lurking dangers. Bhim looked at the position of the morning sun and started to pole with fresh vigour. In reality however, it was the rapid current that was taking him.

31
They glided past plastic flotsam and a bloated cow corpse tethered to a post, a pair of leopard print underwear like a slingshot hung from a horn. He thought of his own drowned beasts. Devika and daughter were recovering inside the shelter. She ran her tongue over the ulcers on her lip. The goat was nearby. Squatting, she forced it up, positioned the cooking pot, wet her hands over the side to wash the teats and coaxed the flow. Soon, the vessel was half full. Despite thirst, she offered it to her husband, but he nodded to her.
“You drink first.”
32
It was comforting to swallow the creamy milk. How long had it been since she had taken any nourishment? They had lost everything and yet the boat and the goat had saved them. She lay on her side to feed Priya, but felt something sharp. It was the shoulder bag she was still wearing. The brass devi was inside. Her mother-in-law must have slipped it in before they had jumped. Thus, the old woman had passed on the responsibility of family worship, so she sprinkled some drops of milk over the goddess, not a proper milk bath, but something.

32
Like this, they travelled. Bhim’s driving instinct was to put the scene of drowned villages and bloating corpses behind. He also feared other survivors turning scavenger and thus told himself the boat was too small to hold more.
“Keep the goat out of sight,” he said to Devika. With it they might survive. But there was no end to the relentless line of wading people. It was cruel, but he ignored their passing pleas for help. One goat’s milk didn’t go very far. It would be days before the waters would subside and sadly many would die of dysentery and typhoid.

33
Yes, Bhim Das had known floods right from childhood. Everyone had. Millions existed between calm and chaos. Then, once at least a decade, nature wiped the slate of the land clean of human habitation. Now mega cyclones were coming with greater frequency. He’d read in the papers about climate change – the disaster pendulum was swinging to each extreme with greater force – a rising flood of diseases here, a retributive drought happening somewhere south, west or north. Everything was disturbed. Bapuji had always harped on about respecting nature. “If you are going to live by the river make friends with the crocodiles.”

34
They moved through the wasteland toward that part of the inland delta system where his uncle lived. Bhim didn’t want to entertain the possibility that the fishing village was no more. Instead, he blithely pictured days spent with otters. Kept on leashed ropes, six would be released to scare fish between spoon boat and riverbank into the net. During the work, the whiskered creatures would be thrown tidbits, then finally a portion of the spoils would be dropped wriggling on a metal tray for them to feast upon. Now, he desperately hoped Varun Das Uncle and his ‘river dogs’ were alive.

35
Finally, he found the tributary at low tide leading to where the village that should have been like a fish skeleton picked clean. The caged otters, cooking fires and fish drying in long rows were gone. The storm surge had done its work. He felt like weeping, not just for the destroyed life of his Uncle’s family, but because part of his childhood had been washed away. For the first time, Bhim felt frightened. He had dragged his family too far in the naive belief that this place would weather the storm. Across the tidal inlet there was only wild jungle.

36
He was stepping over the feral edge of his world. The Sundarbans, the world’s biggest mangrove forest, a braided delta of one hundred islands had long been the Gangetic plain’s shock absorber against cyclones. Without it, the region would have been bitten back into the Bay of Bengal. Here the low tide salt-filtration roots rose up from sediment like a killing field of pointed spikes helping the mangroves breathe. When the boat was tied, Bhim wanted to survey the island.
Devika said, “Don’t leave us.”
So they both got down, Devika with baby and milk pot, Bhim dragging the goat.

37
Negotiating carefully where to step barefoot between spikes, he saw pug marks in mud. Fear and nausea punched him. He suppressed it, stepped into the trees with the right foot first, (just as he would later leave with the left) something he’d learned as a boy. Now, the trail rose to an open ridge-top. It was looking familiar. He’d been here with Varun Das and smoking out savage bees and cutting honeycombs from branches in past seasons. At the top, a rough thatched temple had weathered the storm on stilts, housing its image of Bonobibi, the goddess of the forest.

38
Now he needed to meet the holy man and get his blessings. Bhim found him perched up in his hut. Bhim was relieved. Someone familiar was still here.
“So, you are back,” said the sadhu, his eyes screwed up like raisins, squinting down at them on.
“Baba,” Bhim Das said. “This is my wife and child.”
“Son, this time is bad.”
“We lost everything, Baba. Our land, my mother. Have you seen Varun Uncle?”
The sadhu went silent. What did he know?.
“I saw the fishing village,” Bhim said. “Washed away.”
“They are gone,” is all the holy man would say.

39
“Let’s go,” he said. And climbed down the rungs. Made of, this structure like the temple’s legs had resisted many cyclones and surges. Or was it the holyman’s power? This flattened ridge was the highest and safest place. All climbed to the temple level and bowed in turn to Bonobibi’s idol. On the left was Daksin Ray, the tiger god, and Sha Jungli, Bonobibi’s club-wielding warrior brother was on her right.
Then the old man prepared to do his ritual.
“You have something to offer, Mother?” he asked?
Devika passed over the pot swishing with the last of the milk.

40
The shaman lit incense, poured milk into a brass vessel and mixed in white round discs of sugar wafers, known as patashas. He placed it before Bonobibi and prayed:

O Mother of the forest
we’re nothing — mosquitoes,
dumb stones in the mud.
Despite this, protect your lowly sons,
like Bhim Das and his family
keep them safe in your womb
for the full term, and place them
there again and again.
Do not leave his side, Ma,
O Ma, please listen.

With that, he offered the milk to goddess and entourage, and then to Bhim and Devika who wet her finger for Priya to suck.

STEVEN

I hold my hands near the fireplace, warming them from iced numbness. “I miss my longjohns, the bright red wool ones with the fold-down back flap.”

John laughs. “Mine were footies. Bright red, but no flap.”

Rufus nods, unwraps a bit of meat from a red cloth sack, slides it onto his stick, and holds it over the fire. “Ayup. I got ones kinda like that for my kids.”

He shuts up then, sudden-like. We listen to the hiss-pop of the cooking meat, the crackling fire, the restless infected wandering outside.

We don’t ask about Rufus’ kids.

We aren’t hungry.

NORVAL JOE

He leaned on the second floor railing looking down on the heads of shoppers below. It had been years since he last visited the local shopping mall and felt even more out of place than he had before.
“When I was a kid if we wanted to be rebelious, we went without underwear,” he grumbled. “Now it seems that’s all they wear.”
“Dad. I found what I need for the wedding. Can you come in and pay for it?” His daughter asked from the entrance to Victoria’s Secret.
Blood drained from his face as he asked, “Do I have to?”

DANNY

“What is that under there?!” I shouted. “Under where?!” my roommate screamed back, concerned. “HA! I made you say underwear!” I shouted back. My roommate, not amused he fell for this joke for the 3rd time this morning, gave me a cross look. The joke was wearing thin. “Shouldn’t you be writing?” my roommate quipped. Instead, I noticed my Maltese Freddie under the table. Before I could say, “look under there”, I was smacked over the head with a frying pan. I woke up to find my roommate stuffing his used underwear in my mouth. Surprisingly, they taste like waffles.

TURA

A century would be enough for my first experiment with the Time Machine. I emerged into a London thronged with masses beyond all expectation.

“Great steampunk outfit!” exclaimed a passing group of strangely dressed young people. On engaging discreetly in conversation, I realised that they took me to be in fancy dress, pretending to be exactly what I was! I played this happy chance to the full!

“These astoundingly compact telephones, I can understand as a simple extrapolation from the contraptions of a hundred years ago. But tell me, why does everyone in this era walk about in their underwear?”

PLANET Z

She came out of the bathroom in a white cotton robe, holding a pair of red panties in one hand and white in the other.

“Which color should I wear today?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, untying the robe’s belt and opening it. “Let me ask.”

And I buried my face between her thighs.

Four minutes later, I came up for air.

“All I heard was YES YES YES,” I said. “No colors, though.”

She smiled, put her hands on my head, and I bent down to ask again.

(Whatever the color, she’s going to need another shower.)