Wardrobe malfunctions

***Disclosure: This post is not appropriate for people with refined sensibilities nor should it be read by women who are subject to fainting spells or are cursed with vivid imaginations.

For those of you who still harbor the tiniest bit of respect for my skills as an outdoors-man, you might want to skip this post, too.***

---PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK--- 

Having learned my lesson the last time I sat in the Orchard stand, I was prepared this time. The wind-chill was 38F which was almost identical to the last, cold sit I had in the stand.

I upgraded to a quilted shirt, quilted bibs and an honest-to-goodness parka.

But let me back up a bit in this story....

As a frugal family who did not want our kids to feel left-out or "poor", it was our habit to "pad" the number of presents beneath the Christmas tree by wrapping packages of underwear and socks.

I am tough to shop for. My needs are very simple. If I have Mrs ERJ, a warm place to sleep and adequate food then I am a happy guy. Throw in a truck that starts when I turn the key and I am filled with ecstacy!

So, my supply of undies and socks is also replenished on Christmas. Often, they are the only gifts I get. It is all good.

I do my laundry every week. That means I need a minimum of 8 pairs of undershorts in the fleet to make it to the next laundry-day. A few more is better in case my laundry-day is delayed.

If you do the math, there are 49 weeks between the end of regular, firearms Deer Season in Michigan and the previous Christmas. For the senior-undershorts there have been 101 weeks have elapsed from the Christmas before that and the last week of Deer Season.

Back to the story

I had been piddling around the orchard for a couple of hours before adding the warmer clothes. My plan was to sit from 4:00 p.m. until the end of legal light.

I waddled from my truck to the Orchard stand and started to climb the ladder to reach the stand.

As I started climbing the ladder, my undershorts shinnied down the rump-roast of my butt and continued heading for my knees. I went up. My shorts went down.

Curses!

I climbed back down the two steps I had taken to get back on to solid ground. There was no way I was going to let go of the sides of the ladder to fish-around and try and yank my shorts back into position.

I unzipped my parka and reached through the slits in the sides of the bibs. I had to worm my hands through the folds of the quilted shirt and snake them over the waistband of my jeans and down the legs before I was able to find the flaccid waistband of my undershorts. Then, through an aerobic sequence of dance gyrations and manly "come-hither" evolutions with my hands I convinced them to return to their appointed position north of my privates. 

I started back up the ladder, assuming I had handled the problem. I was wrong. The bibs, insulated shirt and my carpenter jeans interacted with my shorts and down-they-went.

(Lather. Rinse. Repeat the previous three paragraphs) X 3

Resigned to the inevitable, I waddled up the ladder with my knees splayed as far outboard as I could manage. Miraculously, the undershorts only slid MOST of the way down. That worked great until I got to the door of the blind which is about 20" wide. I had to squeeze my knees together to get inside and yes, the undershorts slide beneath the waves like the submarine in the movie Das Boot avoiding an airplane.

By now, that pair of shorts had acquired sentience and they hated me. 

More dance gyrations were performed in the confined space of the deer blind. It may have been my imagination, but I thought I heard deer down in the pucker-brush chortling.

 Of course, it could have just been the Fruit-of-the-Looms jeering.

The only deer I saw last night were as I drove home. The deer were grazing in the alfalfa field south of my stand. They stopped eating and started pointing at me as I drove by. Word gets around quickly.