True Confessions

When I was in high school (1958-62), I remember a magazine called True Confessions (the one above is from 1959). I just checked online and discovered that it began in 1922--and is still being published, aimed, says Wikipedia, "at young women readers." Okay. I used to look at it now and then ... which becomes somewhat more "interesting" as the story I'm about to tell you unfolds.

Anyway, confessions are putatively "good for you," so here goes ...

Yesterday, I was telling an acquaintance in the health club locker room about my ... error ... from a couple of days ago--the day I'd somehow pulled on my shorts inside-out, not noticing until I was about to exit the room to go work out. Oops. (Signs of dotage are everywhere!)

He laughed and told me a story about how, years ago, he'd gotten up early to leave for work and had somehow pulled on a pair of his wife's jeans instead of his own. Didn't notice till he got to work.

I laughed--and thought No way I could have ever worn Joyce's jeans! (She's slender; I'm ... not always so.)

And then I remembered a story I hesitate to tell you--but will do so anyway because another sign of dotage? Losing the "governor" on your tongue--or, in this case, fingers.

We were in the first year of our marriage (which had occurred in December 1969). We were living in a little apartment in Kent, Ohio. Our washer and dryer were in the basement. We were still figuring out our "roles" in our marriage. Nowadays, they're pretty fixed, our roles, our jobs: unloading the dishwasher, cooking, laundry, baking, carrying out the trash, shoveling snow, etc. There's some flexibility in all of it--but not all that much.

Anyway, I was still quite a Major Doofus then and expected Joyce to do the jobs my mom had done. I very quickly learned: This ain't gonna happen. And so I made ... adjustments.

I had begun my fourth year of teaching at the Aurora Middle School; Joyce was a full-time grad student at Kent State, working on her master's in English--she also had an assistantship and taught a section (or two?) of freshman English.

This is getting be a long lead-up, isn't it? Delay, delay--the shamed man's storytelling strategy.

Okay. One of Joyce's jobs was the laundry. I had done it myself during my three previous years of bachelorhood, so I also did it now and then in our early marriage.

One dark morning, getting ready for school, I opened my underwear drawer ... nada. Oops. I crept down to the basement, checked the washing machine: there were all my underpants--freshly washed and wet, wet, wet.

Now what?

There was no time to pop a pair in the dryer--I was already running a tad late.

I headed upstairs. And ...

... Oh, I really don't want to tell you this ...

... I opened Joyce's dresser, found a pair of her underpants, and pulled them on. (Rather tight around the thighs, I must say.)

And off I drove to school, terrified that I'd have a car accident--or a heart attack--would have to go the hospital, where ... you know ...?

It was among the longest days of my life.

After about thirty years, I got home, immediately changed underclothes (Joyce had employed the dryer in my absence).

A few years later--perhaps after a few beers?--I confided to a colleague what I had done that day.

He looked at me as if I were insane: "I woulda called in sick," he declared.

Why hadn't I thought of that?

I trust, by the way, that you will keep my secret? I mean, it's not like this is on the Internet or anything, right?