Recently, a friend posted his embarrassing underwear moments on his blog site. Funny enough, while I was reading his article, all I could think of was this particular pair of undergarment that has haunted me from 4^th grade,all throughout high school, and even up to now.

CHEESECLOTH

Generally, people do not give their panties specific names. But then again, I have always been weird and because that particular occasion warranted it, I have named one specific pair of mine as Cheesecloth. Cheesecloth actually came into my life as a great looking panty. My mother bought me this apple green colored underwear which was decorated with tiny dark blue colored butterflies. Like most of my undergarments during that time,it was waist high and (as my mother kept insisting) covered everything that needed to be covered, including the lower part of my ribs, my bellybutton and all parts of my behind.

I actually loved Cheesecloth. So much so, that after two years of favoring it over the rest of my panties,I had worn it down to cheesecloth like consistency; hence the name.By the time I was in 6^th grade, Cheesecloth had degenerated into the thinnest underwear fabric known to man. If you folded it up into 3 sections, you could still see through to the other side. This underwear also had garters on its leg openings which had already snapped shortly afterwards. This left the fabric freely flapping down there whenever I ran. In other words, only the waist band held Cheesecloth up whenever I wore it.

As I entered my first year in high school, I finally accepted that Cheesecloth had served its time. But for the life of me, I could not bear to throw it out. So it sat therein my underwear drawer and was used as sparingly as possible. By“sparingly,” I meant: using it only when I no longer had any other clean underwear to use.

However, subsequent use of Cheesecloth proved to be embarrassingly calamitous -- to my dignity, that is; and oh yeah, to certain parts of my anatomy as well.

One time I wore Cheesecloth underneath my one-piece bathing suit. I figured that since it was so thin, no one would notice. I actually had more fun in the water since the undergarment’s lack of garters in the leg openings gave me more freedom to splash about and I was not afraid of exposing female parts that should never be shown in public.

But when I rose from the water,Cheesecloth hung out like curtain draperies from both leg openings of the bathing suit. Worse, I had not noticed that I was walking around with droopy underwear because I was wearing a vest like floatation device. Someone else had to point it out to me.

Let’s just say that it was one of those moments when I seriously considered living underwater for the rest of my life.

FATEFUL P.E. CLASS

Although there are other misadventures I have had with Cheesecloth, the one instance that finally made me decide that this particular pair of panties had to go happened in 2^ndyear high school. Due to a whole week of rain, I ran out of clean,dry underwear on P.E. day. I distinctly remember that the incident happened on a Thursday.

It was a choice between using a dirty pair and having to make do with Cheesecloth. Naturally, I chose the latter. Unfortunately, the underwear waist band finally snapped when I pulled it up, giving me a third improbable choice of going commando on P.E. day.

I couldn’t do that of course,especially since our P.E. teacher during that year was relentless when it comes to physical exercise. She was known to make students do duck walks the entire length of the gym, jog up and down the bleachers, and perform jumping jacks like your life depended on it.Her favorite sport was volleyball which I totally sucked at, and she hardly gave us time to practice kickball which I was somewhat good at.

Not so brilliantly, I decided to liberally use safety pins to hold Cheesecloth up. But no matter how hard or creatively I pinned the fabric together, the panty kept sliding off. It was always in inevitable danger of sliding down to my knees like curtain draperies if I did something physically strenuous,like breathing.

Since I am prone to do weird things and due to the desperate need to WEAR underwear -- any underwear to school, I decided to pin the useless waist band unto the middle part of my P.E. shirt. By that time, Cheesecloth’s loose fabric covered most of my midsection including the lower part of my ribs, my entire stomach area, and parts of my behind down to about 3 inches of my upper thighs.

Since the shirt was normally hidden under a dark blue jumper (which in my school was used in lieu of jogging pants,) I decided that I had a workable solution to my underwear problem. The only drawback was that: every time I raised my arms, my undergarment rode up my female parts that should never be rode up in. I decided to keep my arms down for the rest of the day. I mean, in my P.E. class, I could ask to be a baseman in a game of kickball which would mean, I could catch balls thrown at me at waist height.

Unfortunately, my P.E. teacher had a different idea. She made us do jumping jacks for six sets at 24repetitions each, before and after the volleyball game as a form of warm up and cooling down exercises. Then she decided, on that particular day alone, that all those who sucked at this particular sport should do extra work spiking (well, trying to spike) the ball over the net.

I vividly remember that memorable Thursday because I was sore all throughout Friday in places I should never have been sore in. By Saturday morning, I was feverish with soreness. By Sunday, I officially hated P.E. classes.

GETTING RID OF CHEESECLOTH

As soon as I came home that fateful Thursday, I gave Cheesecloth (all torn up from the safety pins, the jumping jacks and the overhead volleyball spikes) an ignominious dismissal. I threw it in my room’s trash can. What can I say? I was thoughtless then… and sore… and humiliated… and sore… and pricked by pins… and sore.

Did I mention, being sore?

Little did I know that Cheesecloth would take a life of its own and punish me unmercifully for its shameful (and unwashed) eviction from my underwear drawer.

A few days after saying farewell to Cheesecloth, it came back -- newly washed, dried and neatly folded.It was actually sitting proudly on top of my other newly laundered panties. I asked my Mother about it and she thought I had accidentally thrown out my favorite pair of underwear, so she rescued it.

Right then and there, I knew I was in for a long, hard fight. My Mother never actually threw out anything if she could help it. If any object at home was still serviceable, my mother kept it. I knew I had to find sneakier ways of getting rid of Cheesecloth.

I once surreptitiously inserted this particular pair of undergarment in a bag of old clothes that my Mother had collected for donation to kids in an orphanage. I figured that someone would find Cheesecloth still “serviceable,” either as a tofu strainer or a cheap lamp shade fabric. A few days later, it was back. It was sitting on top of my panty pile like it was mocking me. Worse still: I saw minute stitches where my Mother had darned the holes the safety pins made during P.E. class.

I then rumpled Cheesecloth up and stuck it into the pile of rags that my mother kept in her cleaning cabinet.I mean, as a piece of rag, it can still be considered as serviceable,right? Apparently, my Mother had a different notion of underwear serviceability because Cheesecloth came back, all washed, dried,folded and obviously steeped in fragrant fabric conditioner.

Another not so brilliant notion came tome. I gave our housekeeper Cheesecloth to use as a floor rag. She was looking for something to use while she waxed the floor. I told her that my loose and old underwear had already outlived its serviceability and had to literally beg her to please, please,(heaven help me) PLEASE use it. She grudgingly took Cheesecloth. I waited until she poured the red wax on the fabric and smeared it allover the wood floor. I thought that was the end of it.

I checked my underwear drawer religiously after that. I was making sure that Cheesecloth would not miraculously resurrect itself.

Unfortunately, it did… and on Easter morning too. I opened my underwear drawer and there sat Cheesecloth.It was shockingly clean, like it was bleached and purged of all of my wrongdoings. I picked it up by its useless waist band and held it above my head (which was possible because I had worn a new pair of underwear that did not ride up my female parts when I raised both arms.)

Was this a sign? What message was Cheesecloth trying to convey? Was it thinking of other ways of punishing me for my transgression? Heaven help me!

I finally decided to smuggle that darn piece of underwear outside the house and throw it someplace else. I wrapped Cheesecloth in several sandwich bags and stuffed it in one of my knapsack’s pockets. I hatched an abysmal plan of throwing it inthe trash can of my homeroom classroom when everyone else had left for the day.

The bad news was that: some of myclassmates decided to stay a while longer when the final bell rang. I pretended to catch up on my homework assignments while inwardly wishing that they would leave already.

By the time everyone was ready to go home, the janitor was already sweeping the floor of the classroom.  I hastily threw the sandwich bag which contained Cheesecloth into the trash can and made a mad dash for the door. I must have looked suspiciously weird because in my peripheral vision, I saw Mr. Janitor pick up the bag. He tried to peel through the layers of plastic.

I scampered out of there faster than you can say “floatation device!”

CHEESECLOTH’S ONE LAST SALVO

I would like to say that the story of Cheesecloth ended there, but it didn’t. Mr. Janitor did not return my underwear to me, but it still managed to come back in another way.

Two years later, after our high school graduation ceremony, a few of my batch mates and I returned to campus to finish and polish up the yearbook. We asked the groundskeeper to lend us tables and chairs that we could work on. The elderly man was more than obliging. After a few minutes of waiting, we had our workstations set up.

Mr. Groundskeeper started wiping the surfaces. I noticed that the rag he was using looked overly familiar-- with its thin fabric, the almost imperceptible butterfly designs and the grimy but still noticeable apple green color. One of my batch mates jokingly asked the man if he was using old underwear as a rag and he said yes. He even held it up for everyone to see.

I tried to laugh along with everyone,but I knew Cheesecloth was showing me its deplorable condition. It was like having a finger pointed straight at me with the unspoken message: “Look how thoughtless you are! You did this to me! Look at what I have become!”

Fortunately, that was really the last day I saw Cheesecloth. In the back of my mind though, I feel like it would appear again if I visited the campus once more.

EPILOGUE

During the percolating / fermenting process of this article, I was sorely tempted to tentatively title this piece as: “The Panty Ghost of P.E. Class.” It was supposed to start with: “Twas the night before Thursday P.E. class, when all through the underwear drawer…” But everyone would know I ripped it off from somewhere and that never really sat well with me, even with nice fitting underwear on.

In any case, right after I thought I successfully (albeit painfully) gotten rid of Cheesecloth, my Mother decided I needed new underwear. I came home from school one fateful afternoon and found a box filled with 6 pairs of panties. I tried one on.

The new underwear was made of very stretchy material and about 10 times larger than my body dimensions.If I wore the waistband at the appropriate place, the lower part of the panty hung well below my knees. I could sit cross-legged with my both my ankles on the floor and with both legs comfortably folded within the underwear fabric; with room to spare at the sides for my knapsack, my underwear drawer and probably all sorts of floatation devices known to man.

If I pulled the waist band up to my shoulder blades, it covered most of my chest area, my back and all parts of my behind; with room to spare for my Mother, my 2^ndyear P.E. teacher and that friend of mine who made me remember all about my misadventures with Cheesecloth.

I didn’t know if my Mother bought me new panties that would double as one piece bathing suits, or if she expected me to grow into those. In any case, I told my Mother that I can not, will not, and shall not wear those even if my life depended on it. I mean, getting rid of Cheesecloth was hard enough; getting rid of 6 pairs of panties that could swallow me whole would be the death of me.

But then again my Mother never actually threw out anything “serviceable.” I have this premonition that one day I’ll open up my underwear drawer and find 6 pairs of panties pointing their fingers at me saying, “Look at what we have become!”

Heaven help me!

Then my clothes started getting tight again. Certain pieces of undergarments begun to pop at the seams. I was glad enough to blame the shrinkage on the new laundry soap I was using.

It took a total stranger to finally make me realize that I was gaining weight and fast. As I boarded a plane bound home to Davao, the airline clerk processing my ticket asked me, “Ma'am, how many months are you pregnant?” Gah!

I did a double take and babbled something about not sustaining a new life form in my ample midsection, other than a possible infestation of intestinal bacteria. I was so flustered that I think I even went on saying something like I'm not a viable candidate for immaculate conception -- or something to that effect. I remember vaguely that I did make a reference to not harboring an alien embryo in my internal organs. At one point of that conversation, I must have blacked out because I don't remember how I made my exit. But I do remember a brief moment when the clerk gave me the evil eye. I think she was about a second away from asking if I was suffering from any form of mental disorder, and whether or not I should be out in public at all.

Anyway, I decided to exercise lose weight. And by “exercise” I mean having doing more other than shuffling back and forth to the bathroom and the computer room while trying to stay awake in between. With my work schedule though, I found this rather difficult to do. But I did manage to lose a couple of pounds here and there. Of course, the word “lose” is relative here and so are the words “a couple of pounds.”

For my first exercise, I went online. I thought I would need a lot of guidance in the workout department because frankly, I didn't know any exercise regimen other than swimming and brisk walking.

Swimming was out of the question, of course. The only body of water within my immediate vicinity was a creek, which had a very rocky bed and water that was only a foot deep. Besides, the only people I ever see near the water are kids trying to catch toads.

Unfortunately, the only piece of swimsuit I currently own is colored dark green with spots of black and yellow. It thought it looked cute when I first bought it. But if I wore that and started doing breast strokes in the shallow creek, those kids might think I'm the biggest toad in the world. Or worse, I would be the biggest pregnant toad in the world. No, worse still: they might actually try to catch me and haul me back to the airline clerk so that she could give me the evil eye again.

I searched the web for exercise regimens I could try. I downloaded a few exercise videos which I found too tiring to watch. At the end of the day, I was so beat I ended up sleeping instead... right there in front of the computer.

FYI: I did try out a few of those exercises, particularly the belly dancing workout. I reasoned, since I have more belly than was necessary, I might as well go for a bit of tummy jiggling. Unfortunately, the 2 ladies teaching the dance moves apparently had muscles that I never knew existed. When they said to “move only your right hip, gracefully up, down, up, down,” they did this dainty movement that yes, moved only their right slender hips.

When I tried doing the same, I had to move my entire right side. My hip wasn't cooperating, so all the the muscles from the right side of my face, down my shoulder and to my right calf had to pick up the slack. I certainly wouldn't call my movements as “graceful.” I think it was more in the vicinity of “self induced muscular spasm while being electrocuted at irregular intervals.” At the end of one session, I was suffering from a full body twitch similar to a toad on drugs.

After twitching indefinitely, I decided to give up on those darn video exercises and do brisk walking instead. This means that I actually had to set a particular time of the day to go out and walk anywhere but my apartment's interior. I decided early morning -- like crack of dawn early morning would be best. So I put on my walking shoes and headed out. Now, this yielded better results.

For one thing: I discovered that I could actually walk faster, get my heart really pumping and sweat a lot if there was a pack of street dogs literally hounding my every step. But I think the sweating part came more from the fear of being mauled by mangy canines than the actual workout.

Secondly: I get to meet a lot of interesting people, so to speak. On the fourth day of brisk walking around town, I almost jumped out of my skin when I saw several pinpricks of lights in the distance, eerily floating toward me. Then I heard human voices mumbling in a singsong manner. If it weren't for the pack of dogs at my heels, I would have made it all the way back to my apartment in 2 seconds... flat. You could have probably timed it too, since I would be screaming at the top of my lungs all the while.

It turns out that a group of ladies were holding a dawn rosary procession. I stood by the side of the road to let them pass. After a few minutes, I simply had to go home. I can assure you: nothing can give you a full body twitch complete with heart palpitations and severe exhaustion than the thought of meeting ghosts on a darkened street.

There was also this very “interesting” guy from my neighborhood. During my early morning walks, I have encountered him several times drunkenly and loudly (but very happily so, with much laughing and hugging) talking to the wooden electrical poles at the side of the road. Since I'm not really into such encounters, I've tried to avoid contact with him. I choose different routes every time, but he seems to pop up everywhere I go.

One time, I was heading back home after brisk walking with the darn dogs, when I saw Mr. Happy talking to the electrical pole that was nearest my apartment. He saw me and waved, then started weaving towards me with arms flopping everywhere and a happy, inebriated face. Naturally enough, I tried weaving away from him, which was fairly easy to do if you have mangy mongrels dogging your every step.

When he was only a couple of feet away, he started talking to me. I could not understand a word he was saying, but he was laughing all the time so I figured he was saying something positive. Besides, I was too preoccupied to listen. I was trying to keep the dogs between him and me, just in case.

Unfortunately, Mr. Happy was determined to carry a conversation with me, and I could not walk to my apartment because I was afraid of him camping right outside my door. So I walked away in another direction, with the dogs and Mr. Happy several steps behind me.

After that, I decided that I really, really need to lose weight. If there's anything worse than being mistaken as pregnant (when I'm not,) or as a toad in the creek, or as dog chow for mangy mongrels, its being mistaken for an electrical pole. But maybe walking around town is not for me. I'm now thinking of going to the airport and doing my exercises there. I'm now steeling myself not to have any form of self induced muscular spasm when the airline clerk gives me the evil eye.

Question: what's the funniest exercise you've tried that really bombed? Haha!