the tragic death of two pairs of underpants

*** Scatological content warning!! ***

Had an amusing conversation with German M a couple of weeks back about the literal nature of many German words. I’m already enamoured with the German language’s tendency to package complex concepts into single words (e.g., weltschmerz, schadenfreude).

Some examples (English word + English translation of German word – don’t expect the actual German word, I’m not that thorough):

Television = “far seer” (which I think is the same as the Greek [tele] and Latin [vision] parts of the English word)
Airplane = “flying thing” (you can’t deny it’s accurate)
Refrigerator = “cold cupboard”
Vacuum cleaner = “dust sucker”
Diarrhea = “flow-through” (also interesting in Cebuano)

"TELL US MORE ABOUT THE LAST ITEM IN THAT MODERATELY AMUSING LIST!! PLEASE!!!" I hear you scream in a desperate, ear-shattering, soul-piercing falsetto. Well – it's funny you ask! As it turns out, I have myself experienced some flow-through over the last few days.

While Brother of Secret Wombat, E, B, K, D and I were in Sabang, I must’ve eaten something that the others didn’t. I was sort of glad it wasn’t one of them, being here on holiday and all, but the occurrence did batter the well-travelled, iron-constitution, pragmatically competent reputation that I'd like to believe I have but probably don't. I haven’t felt ill, I’ve just been visiting the comfort room (as it’s known in the Philippines – CR for short) rather frequently.

Not, however, quite frequently enough.

Yes, in the small hours of Sunday morning, I awoke TWICE with something that rhymes with a start to find that my undies needed to be thoroughly washed or thrown out (I chose the latter – they were skanky undies). It was lucky I was wearing undies at all; I usually don’t (please don’t pretend you didn’t want to know that … or any of this, for that matter) – it was only because M, E, B and K were in the bedrooms, and D & I were therefore on the floor in the loungeroom, that I adopted some degree of modesty.

There was absolutely nothing I could have done about it. Each time, I sighed, showered, and placed undies in a plastic bag which was tightly tied and thrown into the apartment block's rubbish collection. I haven’t had such misfortune since I don’t know when. Even the makeshift nappy of tissues that I fashioned after the first incident failed to provide enough protection to save my poor boxers. D would probably confirm that it wasn’t the sexiest night we’ve had in our 2.5 years. It's sad but true: even my EXTREME NATURAL SEXINESS* wilts in the face of uncontrollable flow-through.


*Not an independently verified trait.