Madras

The double-takes, the jeers said it all. I wasn't fooling anyone.

A Hispanic girl pushing a baby stroller contorted her face into a frown. She curled the side of her upper lip into an Elvis sneer and said, "Uh-uh!" Then she rocked her neck back and forth a couple times like her name was Shaniqua and she said, "I don't think so!"

An old man sighed in disgust and said, "This town is getting way too liberal."

Two little girls galloping to school stopped dead in their tracks and gasped. "Did you see what I think I just saw?" one said to the other.

They sure did.

I laughed knowingly. Because a couple weeks ago I learned about madras shorts. The kind of shorts that you buy at the Gap, or at J.Crew. The kind of shorts that it takes a certain guy to pull off wearing. The kind of shorts that must be a new fashion trend, I guess, because it wasn't brought to my attention until recently.

I laughed knowingly because I hadn't done my laundry in a while and didn't have any clean shorts so I decided to just do my morning jog in the red plaid boxers I wore to bed the previous night, hoping that they would pass as madras shorts. OUTSIDE, IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. FOR ALL TO SEE. Just me, a white t-shirt, running shoes, and my boxer shorts. The kind of boxers that end mid-thigh. The kind of boxers with a hole in the front, for easy access. The kind of boxers that draw double-takes, jeers.

"I know what you're thinking," I said to an offended fellow jogger next to me. "Good thing he doesn't wear whitey tighties, right?"