The Good, the Bad, and the Butt-Ugly

Clothing as a kid was... justifiable. It beat being naked. The choice of clothing though was, at best, not always ill advised, right? It was the 90s, which meant nothing matched. Hey, If the good Lord had intended clothes to match, he wouldn't have invented the word "radical"! There were a lot of bold, primary and neon colors, whites, and blacks. There were patterns and random designs, all competing for attention. Clothing was just one big billboard of designs, lettering, and color swabs. It was "fresh" and "urban" and "rad." It was bulky and swooshed around a lot in the wind, and usually layered. Your body was somewhere inside it at any given time, but exactly where was often hard to tell. It was cool. Jeans were usually stonewashed or bleached, or were either so baggy dudes looked like clowns, or were so high-waisted you could get your belly button lint caught in your zipper (Pre-faded? More like "pre-wedgie"). And I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't caught alive in all of this crap while growing up.

Before we begin on our head-to-toe safari of 90s artifacts, I have to preface this with an admission: I wore visor hats a lot back in my early years. Mine was a green plastic visor though. It never really kept the sun out of my eyes but I always thought it was absolutely stylin', although I could never, ever, ever, ever, ever keep the thing on my forehead.

And speaking of head gear, what could be more "all-American boy" than the classic backwards hat? It may be the most iconic "boyish thing" there is that doesn't have to do with being a dumbass or pumping out some kind of bodily function. Needless to say, I was the all-American boy (in every uncomfortable sense), so at times (when I wanted to look cool), I admit I wore a backwards hat. But you can still do one better. See, you wear it forwards, you're uncool. Dweeb! You wear it backwards, you're cool. Ex-cel-lennnt! But... if you wear it sideways, that was just... "too cool." Show off! Yeah, it was all too easy to fly too close to that sun. You could only get away with rocking it sideways if you were black, because they really are superior to us whites. Heck, that's why it's the whites who need their own wash cycle! Bring on the bleach.

Moving south, there was also a strange thing back then that I never even really noticed until I got older and started looking back on all this with a more observant eye, mostly because it was just Earth as I knew it back then. There was a strange thing in the 90s with color block designs on clothes, usually asymmetrical and once again, restricted to primary and neon colors, although purples and teals were common. It infected everything, T-shirts, button-downs, pullovers, coats... you name it, and it usually took the form of at least four realms of colors divided up arbitrarily on the apparel. It was like, sure, we'll have all the colors at once on the shirt, but they are not to intermingle! Each sleeve, each pocket, a different color! Like, let's just stitch together any random piece of fabric together, make it look like it's patched together, because that's just gnarly brah.

For example, you might have a color field on the chest divided in half (and not down the middle), with one side being blue, the other side being yellow, the sleeves being green, and the pocket being red. Or, you'd have a blue sleeve on one side and a green one on the other. Or you'd have a four-way split on your shirt, with one shoulder being green and the other being yellow. Or, you'd have one half being red and blue vertical, horizontal, or diagonal stripes and the other side being solid green...etc.  I don't know if it was just a Tommy Hilfiger thing, or what, but I definitely wore it.

And let's not even get started on the "windbreakers" (because their name sounds too much like an easy fart joke, even for me). Usually they were so over the top with their flashy colors and patterns you could see them from a mile away. They were also always bulky and made you look 30 pounds heavier, draping on you like a circus tent (and often looking like one too) until out the bottom your stubby chicken spandexed legs were just sticking out. Pretty rad, although if you were light enough, the wind could potentially take you away. Seriously, on the water it would be called sail boating.

Now if you were doing the grunge thing, which I often inadvertently and advertently did, your options were fewer. Flannel was essential. It's not grunge without flannel. And even as a kid I knew the rules of flannel. I remember schooling myself on it... okay, you NEVER button flannel, you wear it as outerwear and just let it dangle. The more frayed it is, the better. Under it, a plain-white-T, or a black one, or some kind of rock design, with bonus points for week-old food and pit stains. If you weren't draping your shoulders in flannel, then it absolutely HAD to be tied around your waist. No exception. Kurt Cobain set down the rules, and who were we to change them? It instantly made you the cool kid in school, and the more like a slacker you looked, the better.

Moving even farther south, under your flannel shirt tied around your waist, you had these wrapped around your naughty uglies. They were invariably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers, or if you were lucky like me, Jurassic Park. Once again, no exceptions. If you were a girl, they were probably My Little Pony or something. It was the 90s. But if you were unlucky enough to just have regular old tighty-whites, half the time they weren't all white anyways, if you know what I mean. Hey people, they call them "unmentionables" for a reason! There was a time when any glimpse of your underwear by others was the most embarrassing thing you could endure, especially if you were wearing shorts. But then sagging and low-rise jeans became popular, so now just flashing your TMNT underwear for all to see is encouraged.

Sticking around your waist also was an accessory even more dreaded and yet just as ubiquitous. The fanny pack. It's one of those things where the less said about it the better, and mostly it's been banished to the 90s, but any archive footage of the era will inevitably unearth its sordid existence. First of all, the name is terrible, but besides how questionable it looks and sounds, at least it had a pure intention behind it. I mean, a backpack you hang off your shoulders. A wallet you keep in your pockets. What is so gosh golly darn wrong with a strap around your waist where you can hold your daily things in? I mean, for 90s kids, those were typically Game Boys, Pogs, Pokemon cards, and maybe a Ninja Turtle action figure... but essentials nonetheless. Somehow, this innocent and practical idea for a body accessory in execution soon became a... "no, just no." Maybe it's because it became a bit too fashionable among fat moms and dads strolling around Disney World with these things belted around their massive guts.

Now, you typically wore things on top of your underwear (usually, except on Saturday mornings), so that's where we'll head next. Fair warning! I had a few pairs of hot neon tribal shorts as a kid. Wanna make something of it? Yeah, I had some in pink too. Absolutely mesmerizing designs. If I had pictures of my dorky self wearing them all hiked up around my thighs, I'd show you, but I think any shot the camera must've taken of me in them self destructed from the sheer intensity of the dorkishness it was taking in, fashion wise. Fun to fart in. Funky, "fresh," poppin', primary color explosions of shapes and lines on bright neon fields... I mean, I seem to remember an All That skit with this hilarious super villain dude. When carrying out his dasterdly deeds, he'd bend over and tell his victims to "now stare into my butt!" and they'd be hypnotized by this spinning, whirly pattern on his ass. Yeah. That's what they call satire.

But even that is way more defensible than most of what passed as leg-wear in the 90s. I mean, come on, unless you were hanging onto some spandex from the 80s, or rocking sweat pants, you were stuck with 90s jeans. And how on Earth did they screw up something as pure and beautiful as "jeans" so badly? For both sexes! The 90s had the most crimes committed in the name of "reinventing jeans" of any decade. Whether they were stone-washed or gigantic baggy JNCOs, bootcut, or pre-faded with rips, what the hell happened? Jeans were so simple in the 80s. Taut and functional. You could even run in them! In the 90s they turned into... I don't even know what... baggy, bleached-out abominations. They were either so loose they fell down (for guys) or had waists so high up and tight they were forever to be called "mom jeans" thereafter (for girls). The perpetual wedgie-wear or a new tripping hazard. I guess they were trying to be all urban, but dang dog, since when does "I'm street cuz!" mean you need parachutes around your ass? (And the less said about "parachute pants," the better.)

And so, on that note, we end our little journey at the bottom, with something the 90s finally did right. And they didn't just do it right, they perfected it. Sneakers! I mean, once you got tired of your unisex Zebra pattern Hummel loafers because they kept falling off your feet, man oh man you were either a lucky kid rocking some LA Lights or Air Jordans or Reebok Pumps or Sketchers Hot Lights or Chucks or Heelys... or you were going to bed dreaming up ways you could suck up to your parents to buy them for you. I mean, you showed up to school with these bad boys, you were a Class-Act. You could do no wrong. They were huge. They boosted you up another inch. And they turned you into a walking target (and not just because they lit up). Let's just say, some kids went home in their socks. And if you had to be kicked in the nuts that day, it was an honor to take the hit from a pair of these, because 90s sneakers are the sexiest of all apparel by far. They are nothing but just pure, absolute, sex. Heck, maybe I've just always been sneakersexual.

And oh yeah, socks were socks. They smelled like death.

So there you have it, the head to toe rundown, 90s edition.

End the Overalls

For some reason parents in the 80's and 90's saw it necessary to lock their children into their pants. I don't know if this was supposed to be some kind of Puritanical chastity device or a necessary measure to combat pedos in the times of the Satanic daycares (never understood the panic by the way... all I got at my Satanic daycare was a "time out" for pulling my pants down...), but like all well-intentioned 80s-90s ploys to potentially protect us from the big bad world, it backfired royally, and once again it was only us kids who suffered. I don't know if that's the reason these particular type of pants became fashionable, but I wouldn't doubt it.

In any case, these things called "overalls" were somewhat fashionable at the time, especially for girls, but where they at least didn't crowd their style (at least for tomboys), the whole "farmer John" hillbilly look was not only trauma-inducing for anyone who wasn't a girl, but was also potentially hazardous. Once again, I speak from personal experience. I mean, as weird as it sounds, it's an immutable truth... sometimes in life you just need to be able to take your pants off, or at least be able to get at your merchandise, and that's true for everyone of every time period. These pants in question made it damn near impossible to do just that, which is why they were evil. Either that or I was an idiot kid. 

I happen to remember one panic-inducing bathroom experience at school when I was little, being unable to unhook those metal loops (this was when I was more youngish, you see). I just could not unloop them no matter how long I tried, and I wasn't going to go ask someone to "do it for me" because that's embarrassing, ridiculous, and probably could've landed that person in jail. And no, there was no zipper or anything else, which in my opinion just makes any piece of clothing a torture device. So it was either stay locked in and suffer, of somehow get out of the contraption and do what more and more ferociously needed to be done! Well, it wasn't much of a choice either way. One way or another, that baby was being born! But the seconds turned into minutes. I was standing there in the bathroom stall at school desperately tugging on the loops, furiously yanking at the clips, stomping my feet, holding back the internal surge with all my might and strength, doubling over on the wall, clenched up, sweating, every muscle straining, holding that beast back even as it was already stepping out bit by bit... just desperately NEEDING that sweet sweet release. That big put-off long-awaited ka-BOOM!... but then... but then!!

Actually I don't remember how I solved the problem, or if I even did... But one thing is for sure... one way or another... it came out... and it was most likely both horrendous and yet utterly GLORIOUS. I'm sure angels with harps descended on each side of me singing "Hallelujah." Either way, perhaps I blocked it out for my own good. It was fucking traumatic, that's all I know. Everyone talks about how great childhood was in the 80s and 90s simply because they've been able to block out things like this! This is why I implore people today to never put anyone over (or under) the age of five into these things. Maybe these were cool for guys back in the 30s, but those days done.

Girls actually do look pretty good in overalls, I got to admit, especially when it's all they got on... but what do I know about "clothing?" ;)

Bubble Pipes and Blanket Capes

I don't smoke... any substances, but I once did. Back when I was somewhere around six or seven, I was known to smoke a bottle of bubble soap a day. I was addicted to my bubble pipes, whether they had the soap in them or not. Something about having a plastic pipe hanging out the side of my lips just seemed like the coolest thing in the world, and I'm sure everyone thought I'd be tarring up my lungs nice a thick for the rest of my life as a result. This hasn't been the case, so (*raspberry sound*) to them.

I don't always dig through the reams of photography taken of me (conveniently stored in one of those old cardboard fruit bins you used to see at the supermarkets sitting up on my bookshelves), but when I do, it can sometimes feel like a safari expedition into the surreal. There I find plenty a picture of me wearing a blanket as a cape, usually with some kind of hat and bubble pipe completing the ensemble. Truly, the further back in time I dig, the dorkier it gets. And I know I sound vain, but this stuff just has to be documented. This is as dorky as it can get, and yet I hope you agree, pretty much as awesome as it can get too... or cringey... you decide. 

Me, living the dream.

I don't know if I was trying to be some super hero who smoked a pipe, or what that was about, but no getup seemed complete without the blanket cape and bubble pipe accessories back then, and arguably, no getup was as cool without them. And wearing a cape didn't do me any harm either. I never tried to "fly," ...at least not without trying to take off from the ground first!

T-shirt, sweatpants, bubble pipe, blanket cape, cardboard roll, poofball stocking cap, indoor trampoline... the pieces are all coming together.

The Dreaded Sweater

Growing up in the 90s, I think we saw the end of the "holiday sweater" as a legitimate article of clothing, and especially the end of the fuzzy sweater. For a long while there, as soon as the temperature started dipping to the 30s around the end of November, you'd suddenly start seeing them. Young and old alike. Girl and boy. We all became Swiss in December.

As kids of the 90s, we spent half the year swimming in our massive t-shirts hanging lower than our shorts, and the other half choking ourselves behind itchy wool. That is, when we weren't already choking ourselves in itchy wool the rest of the year (yes, sweaters were once considered casual clothes!). The sweater beast usually came in vomit colors, grey-ish neon fibers all meshed together in fuzz, or came stark and contrasting enough to blind you in sunlight. There was no in between. Then there was the dreaded holiday sweater, usually dark red, with knit-work reindeer, Santas, or snowflakes, all assuring its immediate termination after the holidays.

They got me too!

What can I say? The collars strangled me, the sleeves rode up my arms, the elastic-y bottoms gave me a draft whenever I bent over, and the sleeves caught on everything! I can't tell you how many I tore through just trying to walk out many a screen door! Plus there was always that static cling to worry about. If you weren't careful, you might be going to the Christmas party with a sock or pair of underwear stuck to your back. And I can't tell you how many girls I saw plagued by the sweater's anti-gravity qualities when it came to standing their hair on end! And how's the Christmas party supposed to be any fun if you can't poke the girls without getting TASERED by their sweaters!? Seriously! (That's how I think I lost my virginity.)

I'm sure somewhere out there people still wear sweaters. Heck, I wore my raggedy old black sweater straight on through high school. But something tells me that this fashion statement is going to be hereto referred to as "that thing we wore back in the 80s and 90s." Maybe the sweater beasts were hunted to extinction, and now it's just, "hey, why are you wearing a sweater? And why does it have to be fuzzy? That's so 90s. Even caterpillars are wearing different styles now."

...Oh who am I kidding, you know I mock 'em 'cause I love 'em.

Slap Bracelets

I remember these slap bracelet things were banned when some kid cut their wrist on them or something. Maybe the reason was because once you start snapping them around your wrist, it is impossible to stop. Bend them out, snap them shut. Bend them out, snap them shut. Over and over.

Nobody ever kept one on their wrist more than five seconds. Eventually the plastic inside would crack and they were useless, but were they ever colorful... just so long as you could bend them out, and snap them shut. Bend them out, and snap them shut...

Stride Rite Slimers

At the risk of further betraying the laws of gender, I'm writing another post about shoes. (Okay! Okay! First hear me out fellas, then you can kick my ass!) Rest assured, these were pretty awesome. It took me quite a while to find the right ones because all I could remember about the "Nickelodeon Stride Rite Slimers" was that they had this plush goo at the toes that you could touch and squish around into different colors. It was like something bionic, as if slipping on a pair would plug me into that battery acid... or like something aquatic or alien.

Everything in the 90s became 90% more cool with slime (Gak, Flubber, Creepy Crawlers, Nickelodeon Studios, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze... the sandwich I left under my bed...), so it was only a matter of time before the universal snot found its way into our footwear. And mine kind of looked like snot too, with a green/teal-colored slime pack at the toes and sides of otherwise white sneakers. I think after a while of smooshing it around it started getting rather bland though, but kind of like the Sketchers Hot Lights, these were pretty cool to flash around the 4th grade while they lasted. And if wearing the Hot Lights could get me aboard the Starship Enterprise, these were probably more Borg-ish. Resistance is Futile!

Needless to say, girls didn't like me. 

Hot Light Sneakers

How do you get a boy "into" shoes? I don't mean on our feet, I mean on our crave list. If air pumps don't work (Air Jordans), you can always put lights in them. I didn't really care much about shoes since I'd given up on my old Thomas Engine straps, but the second my young eyes saw all those kids in the dim light of the commercials leaping over puddles with their heels ablaze in that colored neon light, I knew I NEEDED a pair of Skechers Hot Lights. They looked like something we'd be wearing in the future, and damn did I want to be first in line to board the Enterprise with a pair of those flimsy soles. 

For sure they'd make your every step radiate with coolness, like Michael Jackson in the fricken' Billie Jean video or some shiz... whether they blinked or changed color, stayed lit all the time or only when you stepped, but who knew what would happen if you stomped through a puddle? My mind only saw inevitable death by electrocution with all that "raw electricity" buzzing away at your feet, particularly in such proximity to all kinds of wetness, but little did I know the far more likely scenario was the things just going dead. Until that happened, I probably invented four ways to get them to blink besides just walking around (which never really seemed to work)... one of which involved taking them off and slamming them down on the desk. For some reason, they didn't work very long.

Like much of our most futuristic stuff these days, once the lights went dead on these things, you could forget it. There was no potato test. All of a sudden you'd find that they were harder and harder to get to light, you'd really have to pound your feet down, and then they'd just go out forever. But for the short time they did work, they were certainly cool. Def worth it for the players, am I right hommies? What a way to join the 20th century and embrace the future... light the way to your smelly shoes!

Sweat Pants are Cool

Clothing really isn't that important to me, and the same was true for the 8-year-old me (except underwear choice, of course, which is top priority). If I was dressing fancy, like the "Jr. Mr. Executive" thing I had going, that was one thing. But if I was going casual, at school or at home, just a pair of sweat pants, some velcro sneaks, and a dinosaur or Indian t-shirt was all I needed (in the winter, exchange dinosaur or Indian t-shirt for dinosaur or Indian sweatshirt). And yes, I will defend sweatpants till my dying day. 

I'm a guy, so I don't know the first thing about the first thing about this thing they call "fashion," nor am I going to pretend like I do. But I know what I used to wear back in the day, and I can tell you right now, it was probably not of this Earth. Here's a little rundown of the typical getup I used to assemble on a daily basis, head to toe:

Head and accessories: a blindingly neon-ed out bicycle cap with patterns, and designs, and inevitable checkerboards. The idea was to be seen from a mile away, or boss mode, from space. Add some cheap plastic neon-green shades to these and you were styling in a way you'd never come to regret later for sure. Fanny packs only for the not-so-faint of heart (yeah, even back then). 

Sonic or Nintendo watch was also a must, especially to make your friends jealous. Might also go with a sharktooth necklace or something if you wanted to kick it all surfer brah. 

Upper body: inevitable sweater. If not, then inevitable T-shirt. Baggy clothes were in, in, in. They were everywhere, from the sweaters with the extra fuzz that the girls used to wear, to the bulky "Fresh Prince" rapper-style white T's that hung down to the guys' knees, and the cotton windbreakers you could wear around the house. They usually came in a few basic colors too: white, neon green/yellow/pink (even for guys), and girly "pastel" (if you squint your eyes, it could be any color). Mixed in were random shapes or patterns, black splotches, or some other middle-class "urban" pastiche.

Lower body: sweatpants and velcro sneaks, because shoelaces = work. I wore sweat pants probably 90% of the time, but don't you mock. It was actually fashionable, and really fun to fart in. Everyone was wearing sweatshirts and sweatpants (and headbands) because... we all just became joggers I guess. My sweat pants cache came in a variety of colors I could hopelessly mismatch with my t-shirt colors (again, not a problem in the 90s), basically comprising all the primary ones (except yellow, I was NOT that dorky!). I preferred black though... after all, it goes with anything. The waistbands were snapable and perfect for a good old fashioned wedgie. Although I will say, looking back, sweat pants were never much help in the restroom.

Clothing back then sure was comfortable, and in any situation, no matter how awkward. And that's what being a guy is all about, being comfortable no matter how awkward, just like the Hanes commercial said. Maybe that's what being a 90s kid is all about too.

Boxers or Briefs?

It ain't easy being a guy. We have it hard too. There's so many issues we have to deal with, so many hardships we have to endure. The hardest one by far comes at that time in every guy's life when he's forced to pick a side. Forget political ideologies, right and left, right and wrong, underwear choice is one stance you can't afford to waffle on. You have to make a choice and live with the consequences, and the consequences can be many, and last a lifetime.

Girls have it so easy in life. Their underwear's best use is when it's worn as outer-wear, with nothing else on... obviously. Especially when it's lacey and and comes with a Star Wars logo right in the front (or better, Superman!... no wait... Jurassic Park!!!) (Aww yeah girl). For a guy though, underwear's best use is functional, to be doing what it needs to do under the covering we call "clothes." To not be seen as much as ... assumed. This is why we wear the same pair for days (erm, weeks) on end, and why (when we're alone), we wear nothing else. We know a lot can be deduced from what underwear we choose to wear though, and we won't compromise once we've made a choice. Underwear loyalty is everything, which is why the question about what we go for in underwear is actually quite a test of intelligence, maturity, character, and (sometimes) what 80s Saturday morning cartoon still inspires us. Forget 20-question quizzes in "Does he really love you?" magazines. If you want to figure a guy out, just ask him: "boxers or briefs?" You'll know all you need to know. If he says briefs, marry him. Trust me, as a guy, this is a good litmus test of guys.

Now I've spent a long time thinking about this, as all guys do, and this was the best I could come up with to explain my rationale for continuing to answer the question "BRIEFS." And it's because while we may not win the battle, we win the war. Sure, boxers give you room, they're loose, comfy, and let you move and "readjust," and they are great to wear on their own as if they were shorts, because they come with a front flap (which just makes life easier). But they have a lot of flaws. One, they bag up under your pants and you got to keep adjusting them. Two, clothing makers decided that since men were wearing them like shorts anyways, they might as well start putting buttons to fasten them, which just makes "life" more of a chore than it should be. Why put buttons on the boxers if the whole point is easy access down there? We could live without those pesky button flies all together, we don't need another set on our underwear!

Briefs on the other hand seem to solve a lot of the problems with boxers. If Superman, Batman, and He-Man can wear them on the OUTSIDE, then maybe there's something to be said about their qualities on the inside. Maybe just wearing them will make YOU a superhero too! (Captain Virgin!!) They are nice and snug, and fit tight enough to ensure everything stays in its own little package. They're elastic, so they conform to your legs and waist, which means they don't bag up, and gaining access is always simple... just flip the flaps! Perfect! But I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge there are some disadvantages to briefs too. They're not as comfy as boxers (they're called "tighties" for a reason), they don't allow any "swinging room" (so to speak), the elastics on the legs and waist give you rashes and indentations. Their slim and tight style also means they can't double as outer-wear either, EVEN if you're by yourself eating Cheetos on the couch, and perhaps especially if you're alone. Tighty-whities are a bit too embarrassing to wear by themselves, and should never be worn by themselves. Unless you're female, then please do so.

Plus, the fact that they're so slim and skimpy makes them perfect for wedgie torture (which is good if you're the torturer, but very bad if you're the sufferer). You can't very easily give an atomic or nuclear or melvin, or any of the other forms of wedgie while your victim is wearing boxers, now can you? More surface area on the skin means less hem wedge up the cracks. Now, of course if you're a frequent sufferer of the wedgie you probably don't like briefs, but then again if you're a frequent sufferer and you're not going commando yet, then it's your own fault. Stop giving them ammo! 

Let's not forget to mention of course that they're easier to wear on your head as a makeshift ski mask than boxers are. You can more easily use the leg holes for eyes and the hole for your nose... or to eat through, especially when you're playing masked luchadores on the living room rug or super heroes in the backyard. 

So yeah, briefs aren't perfect, but the truth is, we briefs aficionados like them because they're more supportive and easier to wear, but we will wear boxers just because they look cooler and are comfier. This is why "boxer-briefs" were invented, and are the obvious compromise. They may just be the ultimate winner here, and the most ingenious idea ever, but we're not discussing the subtleties of the so-called "boxer-brief" because it's not a part of the dualistic question posed.

But enough about function. Let's talk about style. Obviously, boxers come in a wide variety of colors and pictures, and briefs have tried to make it with the colors but it just comes off as if you've color-coded your week. The funny thing though is, there's just something more "mature" about boxers, so many guys wear them just because of that, even if they have cutesy little pictures on them! It's like the life cycle of the average male's underwear goes full circle. We start out as kids wearing Ninja Turtles briefs and then grow into "tighty-whities," and then maybe we either go into the land of colored briefs or we go full-tilt into Boxers. We're constantly on the run from the tighty-whitey, and why not? It's tough to shake that "just escaped from the ward" look every time you catch yourself in a mirror when you're changing. But we still like having pictures on our underwear regardless of age, especially at the boxers stage.

Once you've made the decision to continue with briefs to their next technicolor evolution (one color for every day of the week) and take a step into that proverbial locker room, you're still not sure you're going to be dwarfed by the guys already jumping on the boxers bandwagon. But when they reveal theirs and they're full of all these cutesy "flying toaster" or "valentine heart" cartoons, you'll be glad you're a briefs-wearer. Of course anything flannel or plaid and you're screwed, but then again, at least you can easily get at the merchandise at the urinal quick without resorting to pulling down your underwear like you did when you were five.

So underwear is a complicated thing. Guys think about it a lot. It's on our minds. Our brains are constantly calculating comfort down there. We know we look like mental patients or complete losers in underwear while girls look, well, fantastic in it... so for us it's just about being comfortable, and ruling the world in our spare time.

But which is better? Who knows. What do I wear? I wear briefs. My eight-year-old self wore briefs. I was raised on tighty-whities, mostly around my waist, sometimes under my clothes, and a least a fraction of time on my head. Briefs have always been there for me, they gave me support and comfort through the hard times, they picked me up when I was...well, getting a wedgie, and whenever I adjusted my underwear in public... it was always a "snap."

That's why I was, I am, a briefs guy.

Cool Kids Wear Flannel

Flannel was a way of life in my formative years. If you weren't wearing your plaid shirt, unbuttoned and loose, hanging over a white tee-shirt, supported by blue jeans and red chucks, you simply weren't cool enough to be taken seriously. I kid you not. It was a white-trash trifecta of coolness, and gave the impression you could crush a beer can with the best of them. It was the natural evolution of grunge rock perhaps, only on the third grade level.

Well, as with most cool things, I was never wearing flannel much at the time. I never wore the shirts unbuttoned over that trailer park kid white tee-shirt with the jeans torn up. I wore my sweatshirts and corduroy jeans. I wore my Reebok sneakers (which may or may not have lit up with flashing lights in the heel). I wore my hair straight and not disheveled. I had these thin circular glasses propped on my face. I bathed once and a while. Given all these facts, you can probably guess that I wasn't one of the cool kids in the mid-90s, but I tried obsessively to get into that inner circle. And gentlemen, I may have made it further towards acceptance by the flannel jerks than any dork ever has.

Here is my tragic story of profound heroism, and how it all went so wrong. To this day, flannel brings back memories of desperation and ambition gone awry. Of me sitting with my friend Nick behind a divider wall in the classroom, sitting in those little yellow plastic chairs at eight years old, him teaching me how to burp on command of course. It was school after all, and if we were supposed to be learning how to read dumb Little Bo Peep stories about little girly girlies getting all up in a whirly whirly over who-gives-a-CRAP?!, we figured we might as well be learning how to do something useful. See, burping is all in the way you turn your neck...

Anyways, there was this other boy I knew... and yes, he too could burp like a champ, really low pitched and loud, which is a very important... So anyways! He was awesome for a lot of other reasons: stone washed jeans, flannel shirt unbuttoned, white T-shirt, shades. The whole nine yards. Did I want to be him? Of course. Since that wasn't possible, suffice it to say I wanted to be cool like him. He had this gang of other third grade Cobain disciples, and I remember desperately wanting admittance into such an esteemed sanctum. I was so desperate in fact, I would've done anything. I would've uttered every swear word in existence with perfect pronunciation to be in the group. I would've climbed the tire castle on the playground to the top just to see how far I could launch spit out of my body to be in the group. I would've huffed the inside of this kid's Chuck's sneakers and held it like a bong hit for ten seconds three times over... to be in the group. And I mean, three really long huffs (I mean, drags) on his really, really, really rancid, festering, nasty, sweaty, intoxicating, hallucinogenic, delirium inducing, vomit producing, radioactively-smelly sneakers!. I would've taken twenty rock-thrown nutshots up against the brick wall in back of the school... without flinching (or puking!)... to be in the group. I would've poked my hand with a pen tip to the point of drawing blood... to be in the group.

And I know I would've... because I actually DID do all those things just to get these jerks to like me, and of course they actually thought it was the damn-dern funniest thing they'd ever seen, but trust me, this stuff gets real when you're a kid. Becoming "cool" in elementary school is literally life or death. I would've died to get "in" on whatever the hell they were actually doing, and all it probably was was just...I dunno, hanging out by the swing set? Shooting the shit? Being jerks? But no matter. It wasn't about doing all that stuff, it was about doing all that stuff with people who think you're cool. That's the point. Getting to do literally anything "along with them" was that freakin' important to me!

So no word of a lie, I passed through their rigorous series of harsh, painful, smelly, and often humiliating rituals and rites just to be counted among them. I hopped on every tire circling the playground at school without falling off once. I made a complete swing on the ropes and walked up the slippery metal slide. I climbed to the top of the tire pyramid on that playground. I wore shirts that, while not flannel, could be unbuttoned to expose that ever-necessary trailer park pit-stained tee-shirt. I attempted to burp the alphabet (only got to the G, I think). Hell, I let them poke my hand with a pen until blood was drawn! I was not afraid. Give me "cool kid status" or give me death!! And you know what, as crazy as it sounds... it actually worked.

At the end of it all, after all the degrading, demoralizing, humiliating, painful, injurious, testicle imploding, burp reverberating, macho nacho-ness abounding, they were finally proud to call me one of them. They let me sit at their lunch table. They let me hang out with them at recess. I'd finally made it. I was one of the club. I was cool. I had every protection they could afford. There was no more teasing. An official proclamation went out to all the other cool boys. I was part of the wolf pack. It was probably the greatest achievement of my life (especially considering the last 20 years...). And so, that's when I lost it!

It turns out that cool kids are so "cool" they don't have to go announce to the teacher what they were put through to order to become cool. One whiff of that and she came down stern on the whole crew, all the boys who I'd so conveniently named by name, and that was that. "Cool kids don't rat," they said afterwords, and then there was nothing but hostility for the rest of the year. Oh well. As Bob Dylan once said, "Life is bad, life is a bust, all you can do is do what you must." I quickly went back to combing my hair and wearing sweatshirts. That was a must.

The moral of the story is, "90s kids man... 90s kids."