INTO THE WILD

“I’ve completely let go of the whole underwear thing.”

My Zoom conversation screeches to a halt. I know we all are staring at Iris, who has just informed us about her lack of underwear.

“We’re all just walking around our houses,” she explains. “You don’t need underwear for that.”

“I suppose you don’t actually need it,” I offer.

Our group had been chatting about how things are different since the pandemic. Sally now does her own mani/pedis. Cathy is letting her hair go gray. Rachel is cooking more.

So, I think, can you actually let your underwear go? Do you set it free to roam in the wild? Mine are so saggy and threadbare that they wouldn’t last 15 minutes on their own.

I make a mental note to buy new underwear. But then I remember the old ones are just so darn comfortable.

I look at Iris and I want to ask about chafing—perhaps, though, there is a lack of it.

“You don’t wear any?” Rachel asks.

“I might put some on if I’m going to the store,” Iris says.

She might, I think—that means sometimes she doesn’t.

The conversation moves on to other topics, but I know we are all sneaking looks at Iris as we talk. We’ve never seen her as such a rebel before. She’s a nurse, for heaven’s sake!

The conversation ends and we schedule our next virtual get together. I begin to change into my clothes for working in the yard. I slip on a grubby t-shirt and reach for my sturdy work shorts.

Sturdy work shorts, I think, that may not require underwear. I pause, look at the underwear I’m wearing and at the shorts. No one can see me in this part of the yard. No one would know.

I slip the shorts on over my underwear. I can let my nails go. I can let my hair go. I can easily let the cooking go. But I cannot let my underwear go. It would be cruel to send it back into the wild.

© Susan Luzader 2022