Brent Davis (bdavis@bamanet.ua.edu), Center for Public Television, P.O. Box 870150, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487.
It's a fine thing for a man to spend his entire life in white underwear. I aspired to that. I didn't subscribe to the notion that I might become more virile if I traded in my white briefs for a pair of teal ones. No one's going to mistake me for Jim Palmer no matter how exotic my underpants.
But that day at the discount store my cart was filled with decidedly un-virile items. A bundle of diapers as big as a cotton bale. Wipes. Cases of formula. A gross of plastic nipples.
Not that I shot the whole wad on baby. For me: fiber drink in the economy size and moleskin for a bunion.
I pushed my cart past a giggling, cuddling college couple shopping for bubble bath (I immediately despised them) and made my way to the automotive department. I was looking for the most potent car deodorizer on the market. The diaper pail had overturned in the car on the way home from day care. If this didn't take away the smell the last resort would be a controlled burn in the back seat.
So when I saw that spectrum of underwear in cellophane wrappers, I was vulnerable. Maybe these colors will inject some excitement into my life, I thought. Invigorate it. Perhaps it would be easier to buy vinyl underwear for my one-year-old if, underneath, unknown to everyone, I was sporting some jet black job with a silver waistband.
I am wearing colored underwear now on occasion and wonder what the fellows in the locker room say when I'm dressing after a racquetball game.
The ones going bald will understand. They've tried all the snake oils peddled by Madison Avenue to ward off aging. I'm not the first guy who's experimented with underwear because he couldn't find the fountain of youth.
The younger ones, the ones who are not yet routinely clipping the hair that sprouts from their ears, will shake their heads and think how pathetic I am.
My son's underwear is white. Since he's in diapers, there's no alternative. (Can you imagine someone trying to market a green diaper, or a paisley one? No thanks.) But there has been a pleasant surprise when it comes to his undergarments: changing diapers isn't as bad as I imagined it might be.
Several friends had blanched when we announced that for economy's sake we were going to use cloth diapers. What's more, we would launder them ourselves. "You have to rinse those things out in the toilet, you know," one fellow stammered, pushing his fists into his pockets.
I thought he was kidding. Then, a few weeks later, I was startled to find myself holding a dirty diaper at arm's length, headed for the bathroom. "Would you rinse this out in the toilet, please?" Susan asked during one of the first diaper changes after we got our adopted six-month old home.
So I did. I won't pretend it was pleasant, but it was an effective morale booster. As I rose from my knees, flushed, and flung the diaper into the pail I realized the worst was behind me. Suddenly I wasn't so overwhelmed with fatherhood. Hey, if I can do this, I can do anything, I thought.
A little later I soloed on my first diaper change. I wouldn't recommend it as a hobby, but I've done more disagreeable things. You don't get as dirty as you would changing a flat. And you don't have to figure out how the jack works.
Now, though, the diaper change has become more complicated because it has turned into one of Zack's more athletic romps. He knows I'm the more exuberant of his parents--Mother rocks him, I bounce him and throw him in the air--so he expects acrobatics when we're together.
In theory I should give him a toy to divert his attention and keep him still. This occupies him only as long as it takes to insert the object into his mouth, determine it's inedible, and drop it to the floor. Then he turns over on his stomach to see where it has landed. Often I'm trying to fasten the forty-odd snaps on his sleeper as he does this. Sleeper snaps are the Rubik's Cube of the '90's.
The most challenging change of the day is the first one, which occurs before I am dressed and fully awake. When I'm thinking clearly I pin him to the changing table with my left forearm while I struggle with the diaper and plastic pants with my free hand. The velcro tabs on the diaper inevitably stick to my shirt. The sight of a grown man with a soiled diaper stuck to his chest is enough to hold Zack's attention, so I wait until the change is complete to unpeel it.
Zack will soon tire of this distraction. One could attach a piece of velcro to a baby's back, I think, and the corresponding piece to the top of the changing table. Then simply affix baby to it and complete the change without the gymnastics. Child welfare workers might object, but as any man in aqua underwear with a dirty diaper swinging from his sternum will tell you, these are desperate times.