Friday, October 22, 2010

One of life's great imponderables

Before starting this post, I have to note that I've been getting hassled to post some stuff. Not because people are really interested in my writing, "wit," or "insights," such as they may be. But rather because people want pictures. Alas, for those hoping for a kid pic fix, I can't sate you today. My muse was spurred by something unrelated to pictures, or any event related to pictures, as you'll see below, so you'll have to wait a bit longer for a backlog of pictures to be posted.

As a (almost) completely potty-trained little fellow, Teddy has quite an array of little boy underwear. He's got Thomas the Tank Engine underwear and dinosaur underwear from the Gap. His favorite underwear series are those that we picked up from Target with superheros. Wolverine, Thor, Spiderman - all of the classic superheros from the comic books of my youth. They don't really spur any particular nostalgia in me, although my comic book collecting experience was my first exposure to an asset bubble - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, issues 1-3, were appreciating at 200% per year according to the price guides and comic conventioneers when I picked up my first issue at age 10. (My comics are now sitting in my parents' basement where they will undoubtedly "pay" for my kids' college education when I finally decide to sell.) What I did notice, however, is that the picture of the superhero is on the back of the underwear. Teddy noticed as well. What's up with that? The whole point of wearing superhero underwear is so that you can see them when you head to the bathroom. But how can you see them if they're on the back? Early on, Teddy started insisting on wearing his underwear so that he could, in fact, see the superhero picture when the time was appropriate. "You want to wear your underwear backwards?", I asked. "No, frontwards," he replied. We've gotten to the point where, each morning, I ask him, "Backwards or frontwards?" And he says, "Frontwards." So the Hulk or the Thing or whoever ends up facing out in Teddy's drawers.

I mentioned this to the ladies at daycare, who thought it was a hoot, but didn't really think much of it until I saw the following today in Pickles in the Washington Post:

Pickles

Apparently, we're dealing with a deep cultural question about the design of little boys' underwear. And, as I'm sure will be the case throughout his life (hah!), Teddy is a trendsetter of sorts.