Let’s Talk Underwear

Underwear is very important on the Camino. If a pilgrim washes nothing else, they wash that.

In Viana, there was a Frenchman who started from Le Puy, so he had already been walking for over a month. I don’t remember his name, so I’ll call him Jacques.

Jacques came to me and said, “I can’t find my slip.” I immediately picture this six foot bearded man in a spaghetti strap satin number, and said, “Your what?” “My slip, my slip,” he said, tugging on his waistband. “Oh! Your underwear?” “Yes, yes, my underwear.” So an entire roomful of pilgrims began scouring the place, looking for Jacques’ underwear. Finally Oonagh (not sure of the spelling anymore; she was Irish), said, “What did you do, Jacques, sling ’em ’round your head and yell, ‘Whee!?'”

No, he hadn’t done that. What he had done was put them on the windowsill to dry, and they had fallen to the courtyard below.

As I mentioned in another entry, I have seen way more men in their underwear than I ever wanted. You’re lying there on your bed, too drained to get up and wash off the dust of the road, and some young Greek god walks by on his way to the bathroom, and you’re like, “Get that tight, sculpted thing out of my sight line. You’re not offering, and even if you were I’m too tired to take you up on it.”

I also have stood in a bar with a pair of pants going, “Who’s are these?” and found they belonged to someone I met two days ago. Life on the Camino.