My Dilemma: Balls Hot

this post is subtitled
Boxers Or Briefs: Extremities in Extremis

mommy always used to reinforce the importance of wearing clean underpants: that wisdom has many and varied applications throughout every stage of life, from childhood, sneaking peaks up girls' skirts or skinning knees in jeans, through adolescence, "pants-ing" others (perhaps being "pants-ed") and entering the dating scene (hopefully being "'pants-ed'"), to adulthood (more with the dating scene, still somewhat with the pants-ing, and largely for the unforeseen trips to the hospital). you simply never know who is going to see your drawers, or whose knickers you yourself might see.

this is no less poignant in armed conflict, and indeed in many respects may be more so; the last thing you want to be worrying about when your medic is patching you up is whether or not he's judging you because of your choo-choos and duckies, or because the choo-choos and duckies haven't been washed in a fortnight.

which brings me to my dilemma. no, not boxers or briefs. that's easy! briefs. i want certain extremities under as tight control as possible, minimizing cross-section, and therefore enhancing survivability. see, it's the vests that have the ceramic plate reinforcement, not the pants, and i do not believe an athletic supporter variant is in any stage of research or development.

here's the issue:

ten years ago this june, i went backpacking with my mates in the shenandoah valley. early on in this expedition, during one of the many switchbacks--get this--switching back, and forth, up the still majestic appalachians, i became aware of an uncomfortable sensation. this feeling was aggravated by the moistures of humidity and sweat, and the constant rubbing that accompanies the simple motion of placing one leg in front of the other. i believe this is called chafing, but i defer to my more medically knowledgeable readers for clarification.

needless to say, the bloomers didn't make it. i didn't even bother to drop the pack; i whipped out my trusty bsa pocketknife and sliced them out from under my shorts. ah! the blessed freedom of ventilation! some of my comrades did likewise, though admittedly with less pizzazz as they made the call the following morning before setting out, and from that moment on our little troupe went by the name The Freeballers.

[editors note: this actually precipitated the brief, faddish popularity of hiking kilts. i'm not kidding. check hiking lore from the late nineties and early aughts.]

examination of the appalachian trail shelter logs from 1997-2002 will yield entries penned by permutations of the original group, trafficking under their proper trail names, but also that very same collective name.

[editor's note: for our more youthful readership, a "trail name" is like a "gamertag". you earn one "outside".]

anyway, back to my problem:

have i mentioned that it hits 135 degrees here? no, not kelvin, and thankfully not celsius, but good, old-fashioned fahrenheit... and, hey, that's freakin' death valley hot. so what to do? brave the briefs and suffer the sweat, or live free and die perhaps not so hard?

wow. i don't think i can top that last sentence.
i'll leave you in suspense...