After an hour Anita came to find Howard. He was surprised to see that she didn’t have a basket with her, apparently she had already bought what she needed and put it in the car. He followed her to the car and they drove home. After she parked her Geo in the garage, he offered to carry her bags in the house. She refused, saying that she could handle the single bag herself. When she opened the car trunk however, he saw that there were far more bags in the trunk than the single shopping bag she had mentioned. For some reason, she was keeping a secret from him, but for the life of him, he could not figure out what it must be. Most likely she had bought some new outfits that she didn’t want him to see because she would be afraid that he would say something about the expense now that he was out of work. He passed it off with a shrug and went to the kitchen door with the soles of his rubber sandals loudly slapping the concrete floor of the garage. Anita came in the house and put the bag of clothes down on the bed, then pulled out a package of briefs and handed them to him. “Briefs?”, he demanded in askance, “You know that I only wear boxers. Briefs bind myÖ.well you know what they bind. Why the Hell did you buy briefs for me?”
“Because those were the only type of underwear they carried in boy’s sizes, that’s why,” she told him, “Besides, they’ll hug your hips better than boxers so you’ll still be able to wear them if you get any smaller. I only bought one package. If you don’t like them and you stay the same size, I’ll go to the Mall and try to find some boxers in boy’s sizes, okay?”
“Well?”, she said looking as if she was about to start tapping her foot impatiently.
“Well what?”, he asked innocently.
“Aren’t you going to put them on? I didn’t give them to you just to look at, you know,” she said severely.
“I don’t know,” he said obstinately, “I don’t need to wear underwear with these jeans. They’re nicely broken in. Look at how soft the fabric is. I really don’t need to wear briefs with them. They’re comfortable without them.”
“Put on the briefs and quit procrastinating, Howard!”, she told him firmly, “You may not have to wash your dirty laundry, but you can at least wear some briefs so you don’t stain your pants! I’m the one who has to get the brown streaks out of the seat if you dirty your pants!”