Like a rockstar...

Do you ever have those dreams where you are at school in your underwear, and somehow no one notices?  You realize that you are on extremely shaky ground: if you play it cool than no one will know that anything is wrong, but even the slightest sign of insecurity and you are absolutely sure that everyone will know.  You feel like a tightrope walker who has to concentrate at every step.  You think "Hide behind things, but don't look like you are hiding behind things.  Smile.  You're cool.  Everythings cool.  No worries!"  You wake up to realize how fragile your ego actually is, and that it seems to manifest itself in giant ways in your dreaming sub-conscious.

Now would it change anything if you had actually had an underwear-at-school type of experience?  Would you feel more entitled to have such dreams?  More secure?

While you ponder that, let me share my underwear-at-school experience.  Since it is now over, I can freely talk about it.  So it was the first warm day of the year.  At least the first really warm day.  I was quite pleased that I could finally pull my dusty shorts out of the closet again.  It was going to be a great day.

Oh, and a little background information for those who don't know me: I'm kind of a dirtbag.  Not a big-time dirtbag: more like a casual dirtbag.

OK, back to the story.  I rode my bike to work, and as I hopped off my bike the front of my shorts caught on the seat and ripped a bit.  Not a big deal, but upon further inspection, it was rather clear that the fabric was worn pretty thin in select locations.  Should have been a red flag for me.  Should have....

We had a little BBQ at work, with some volleyball. (this story pretty much tells itself from here on out.) It was kind of lame BBQ-Volleyball, but I haven't touched a ball in a while so I joined.  Fairly early in the game, I reached down to grab the ball and heard the infamous rrrrrrrrrrip!  Oh.  No.  I pulled a self-butt-check, and things were definitely out for display.  Which wouldn't be a problem if was wearing the type of underwear rappers wear when they are low-riding.  The type of underwear that says "I mock your traditional system of underwear-hiding man!" and somehow says "Check out my drawers, their pretty awesome" at the same time.  No sir.  I had on the type of underwear that you would not wear with low-riding rapper-pants.  I was wearing the type of underwear that, when seen, causes the viewer to instantly know that your underwear was not meant to be hanging out.  What kind of underwear that is: I'll leave to the imagination.  But don't worry, it's not anything scandalous or anything.  Just not rapper-fancy underwear, that's all.  

OK, enough talk about underwear.  On to the story about my underwear showing:

So rather than freezing up at that point and going into some kind of inner-panic, I immediately sprang into action-mode.  It would take a miracle to pull this off.  Luckily my pocket full of miracles was not ripped open. So first things first: the volleyball game.  A sane person would have just tapped out and gone home.  But not me.  I could do this.  It was luckily 2 vs 2, and there was one corner of the court without a bench full of beer-sipping onlookers.  That was my corner.  I asked my teammate if I could remain on that side, because, of course, I hit better from that side.  Not that one needed to hit anything, seeing that the net only went to my chin and we were pretty lucky to hit the ball over the net a couple of times.  I played awesomely, and with my backside always in the safe direction.  Ball out of bounds? No problem! I walked backwards, calmly picked it up, and got back into the game.  Totally natural.  Nothing wrong here.

I played the entire game that way, even won.  There were around 10 people watching on one side of the court and 3 or 4 on the other, and no one saw anything.  Or at least no one made any indication that they saw.  No pointing.  No whispers.  No giggling.  But hey, it's Germany, so if someone would have seen, they would have skipped the niceties and just blurted out "Hey, that guys' Unterhosen are totally showing!"  But no, nothing.  Maybe I have the spectator's alcohol to thank.  Maybe I'm just socially so weird anyway that people just thought: "Hmm, so that's what the Americans are wearing these days."  Who knows, but in any case, I pulled it off.  But that was just the first hour...

I was in charge of a youth activity for our church on the same evening, so all of the teenage boys were meeting me at my work where I was to take them on a tour.  And I did.  About an hour.  We all walked back to my place, and while they were eating dinner I changed.  I couldn't help but take out the shorts after I was not wearing them anymore, and brag about my accomplishment.  I asked them if they noticed anything, and none of them had.  Well done me.  Well done.

So next time you have that dream where you are in a crowded hallway at school in your underwear, just remember this:  Stay cool and no one will notice!

-Scott