Bruce Cameron

Apr 09, 20140

Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2009.

When it comes to men’s underpants, I believe in change.

According to Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, when men’s underpants sag, it bodes poorly for the economy.

The Federal Reserve is a quasi-public institution charged with making the public quasi-queasy with scary pronouncements about the economy. It was created in 1913 to provide the nation with a central banking system but has only recently begun to monitor your underpants.

In a brief statement about briefs, Greenspan apparently did some thinking “outside the boxers,” noting that when men’s apparel falls, so does economic activity. (It also makes it harder to go jogging.) The worse the droop in men’s underwear, the less elastic the economy will be.

It makes a certain sense. When men are feeling irrationally exuberant, they are much more likely to indulge in new underwear, right?

Husband: Hey, I bought these new underpants with pictures of Alan Greenspan on them!

Wife: Stop.

But when the household finances are tight, men are more likely to view skeevy skivvies as a necessary evil.

Husband: I know you can see through ‘em, but I just feel like my underpants are a necessary evil.

Wife: Stop.

OK, I suppose that if you think your underpants are evil, you are probably mentally crazy. On the other hand, expecting your wife to have a sympathetic conversation about your tattered shorts is probably irrationally exuberant, as well. If you want to chat about the droop in your drawers, you should call the Federal Reserve. It has operators standing by to take your call.

“Your call is very important to us. For briefs, press 1. For boxers, press 2. Para los calzoncillos en espanol, presione 3.”

All of this is important because of an April 9, 2009, study by research company Mintel, which predicts sales of men’s undershorts will slip down by 2.3 percent this year, keeping the economy on its knees.

You’d think having sagging underpants would, well, wear thin, but over hundreds of thousands of years men have evolved a tolerance for bad undergarments. Cave drawings seem to support this theory: In lean times, hunters are depicted wearing very little in the way of undershorts, while during periods irrationally exuberant with bison, hunters can be seen wearing pants with little pictures of Alan Greenspan on them.

During this same time, women have developed a tolerance for men wearing saggy, tattered, thin underpants, so long as the women don’t have to see them or know about them.

This is why the chairman of the Federal Reserve has always been a man — because only a man can stand to look at another man’s evil underpants. Every January, the chairman of the Federal Reserve emerges from his hole and takes a look at men’s underwear, and if he sees that the undergarments are a mere shadow of what they used to be, he’ll be frightened and we’ll have six more months of recession.

That’s where we find ourselves now: Nationally, men’s shorts have become a toxic asset. Until people decide it’s time to pull themselves up by their waistbands and get out there and buy some new underwear, we’re going to continue to be let down.

Trend-spotters, however, will enjoy the fruit of the looming recovery and will jockey for position at the top of the underwear drawer.

Husband: Hey, all the guys at the gym had new underpants. Time to buy real estate!

Wife: Stop.

We will get through this, one leg at a time. All we have to do is realize we have nothing to fear but fear itself — plus bad underpants. If each of us in the free world were to go out today and buy men’s underwear, the Federal Reserve might declare an end to this recession, plus there would be a lot of single women wondering what they’re going to do with a pair of men’s undershorts.

Remember what your mother told you, that you should always wear nice underpants in case you’re in an accident and you have to go to the hospital in an ambulance?

Well, that didn’t make any sense, either. So maybe Alan Greenspan knows what he’s talking about, underpants-wise.