If you work in technology, you have to be a Dilbert fan. Scott Adams has a new book out, and I took it along on a recent trip to Seattle and Colorado Springs. It is basically mostly reprints of many of his blog posts over the past few years - I guess the equivalent of newspaper columnists coming "back for more cash" by publishing compilations of their columns, though Adams did seem to freshen his up a bit. Many are funny, many are just sort of quirky, but one had me openly laughing while the rest of the plane was watching Jumper, a very lame movie.
When I got home I showed the piece to my wife and she looked at me like I was from Mars. I guess maybe if she showed me some Elayne Boosler piece on bra strap problems, maybe I'd have the same response - but I doubt it since I actually do seem to get Sex and The City.
(Sex and the City/Sarah Jessica Parker joke that was just on the Tony Kornheiser radio show: "Attending the Belmont horse race at Aqueduct Race Track in NY, Sarah Jessica Parker broke a heel in her Manolo Blahniks and had to be put down.")
The Dilbert blog archives don't go far enough back to link to the piece, but I've repeated it below from a post I found here:
Undergarment Dysfunction - by Scottt Adams 2006
Well, I am returning from my family vacation where -- much to my surprise -- I did not have ready access to the Internet in the middle of the ocean. It was barbaric, yet warm and often tasty. (Specifically, it was a Disney Cruise to the Western Caribbean with my family.) More on that later. For now, I apologize for the posting void and offer you some writing from just before the cruise...
Once in a while I experience a problem that I wonder if anyone else in the world has ever had. Yesterday was one of those times.
I was packing for a one week cruise with my new family and spied some briefs in a drawer that I hadn’t worn since I-don’t-know-when. So I figured I’d give them a go as part of my travel outfit. This turned out to be a big mistake.
For the benefit of the ladies reading this, let me explain a bit about the architecture of men’s briefs. We’re all about efficiency, so most traditional briefs have a flap in the front for quick extraction of your Johnson. That allows us to drink caffeinated beverages (from a cup, not our Johnson) right up to the last moment when it would be too late to make it to the restroom. Then it’s just zip-yank-wizzzzzz. It’s all good.
As a practical matter, I think most guys do the “pull down” move as opposed to snaking it through the flap hole. But in any event, the flap hole is there if you need it, perhaps more for tradition than anything else.
Now sometimes a pair of briefs – for reasons I cannot understand – have the most annoying characteristic you could ever imagine: In the course of normal walking and sitting, the wearer’s weinershnitzel ends up poking halfway through the flap hole like a turtle coming out of its shell. And before long, the most sensitive part of your body is wedged between your briefs and the harsh denim material of your pants.
As I walked toward the departure gate, I was choking Private Johnson and giving him a noogie at the same time. For those of you who have never experienced such a thing, let me say that it causes one to walk like Michael Jackson with a spastic toddler in his pants.
Anyway, the only solution is to do a subtle reach-down followed by a manual adjustment. This is especially challenging when you are surrounded on all sides by people who are waiting for flights and have nothing better to do than listen to iPods and watch for people grabbing their woo-hoos. I couldn’t wait to make it to the men’s room. That was about a block away. I had to do a mid-stride, reach-down, pecker-adjustment.
Luckily for me, I have the power of invisibility. As an unattractive middle-aged male of average size, no one notices me in a crowd unless I’m either on fire or wearing a suit made from the skin of an attractive 20-year old woman. For once, neither of those situations applied.
Now as you might imagine, pecker adjustment needs to be done quickly. If you linger, it looks like something else entirely. You want to maintain some degree of deniability when airport security starts questioning you.
Security: We have a report that you were pleasuring yourself at gate 17.
You: No, I swear, my Johnson had turtled out of my underpants and I was just adjusting my junk.
Security: You lingered.
You: I…I didn’t linger. I panicked. It wasn’t a smooth move, that’s all. I swear.
Security: We’ve got you on the security cameras. Do you want to stick with that story?
You: Okay, maybe I lingered a little. Force of habit.
Security: You may go. No one wants to touch you long enough to put on the cuffs.
Anyway, I went for the readjustment as I passed between the pizza place and the sundries store and I’m almost certain no one noticed. That was the good news. The bad news is that the briefs were repeat offenders. No sooner had I freed Farmer Johnson from the cotton clutches than my yoo-hoo snapped back into the trap like a deranged yo-yo. After about the third adjustment in five minutes, I lost all inhibitions. It’s amazing what you can get used to. I must have looked like I was panning for gold in there.
Anyway, my point is that I’m glad my last name isn’t Johnson. And I’m especially glad that my first name isn’t Harry
