Seeking sense in underwear patterns

My awesome wife, Joyce, buys my clothes. I haven't purchased as much as a sock for myself in more than a decade. This frees me up for things like worrying about the Cincinnati Bengals, which really requires a good bit of my time during the fall and winter.

If you saw last Monday night's game, you'll understand.

Not too long ago, Joyce noticed that some of my undergarments were in sorry shape, so she bought a new bag of boxers. It had six pairs in it. One of the designs is camouflage.

Now, I am not picky about undergarments. I figure the occasion is pretty rare for them to be revealed to anyone else, or at least it would be if I could remember to wear my belt every day. So the pattern of the underwear isn't very important to me.

But I can't imagine a situation in which, dressed only in my underwear, I will ever need to blend into the surrounding underbrush. Yet I know the end of civilization is nigh, and it's hard to predict what situations might confront us in the post-apocalyptic world to come.

Still, camouflage-patterned underwear makes no sense to me.

I suppose a soldier who is picky about matching clothes - even if they don't show - might like my camouflage underwear. Well, I don't mean he or she would specifically like mine; I imagine he or she would rather have their own.

I don't still have my battle-dress uniforms from my Army days, or I could wear them on the one day a week I wear the camouflage underwear. I might forget my belt on purpose that day just so folks would know how pattern-coordinated I am.

To be truthful, on the day after my release from the Army in 1990, there was an incident involving a cleared area, uniforms, gasoline and a match, followed by hysterical glee and dancing, that eliminated my BDUs for good.

I saved a field jacket, which my dad wore when riding his motorcycle for a couple years. Luckily, we have the same last name.

You wonder what think tank came up with the idea of camouflage-patterned underwear. I reckon every combination of stripes, polka-dots and hearts already had been used. They couldn't just use Homer Simpson's face repeated to make a pattern, because everyone already has a pair like that, unless they're poor.

Maybe it was a specific incident that generated the idea. Some underwear designer probably was camping with his or her family, went to use the bathroom in the great outdoors, and was spotted by something or someone because they did not blend in well enough, leading to red-faced embarrassment or an attack by a bear.

Some day I may encounter a situation in which these underwear save my life. And, luckily, one of the other patterns is also a camouflage design, but in blues, grays and whites instead of greens, browns and blacks. So I'll be covered (pun intended) during the wintertime too.

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Did you ever notice that when you're going through kind of a rough patch, and the nice people around you are sympathetically asking if there is anything they can do, and you say you'd like a sandwich, they almost never go get you one? In fact, they get a little huffy.