We went in the front door of The Holy Land Quickee's, intent on scarfing up on a couple of convenience store crappacinos. We weren't on our bikes; there was too much ice on the roads. It was a brisk minus 8, but the sky was a nice blue, and it was clear.
DinkyDau Billy was sitting at his favorite table. He was wearing his new McKinley AFDB. There was an extra-large diet Dr. Pepper at his elbow, and a well-gnawed Juan Diego breakfast burrito beside the Dr. Pepper.
There was also a pair of Hanes briefs on the table in front of Billy. Dark blue ones.
"Billy! Why do you have underwear on the table where you're eating!?" Leece both exclaimed and questioned at the same time.
"Huh? Huh?" Billy seemed somewhat dazed.
"What's with the underwear, dude?" I asked, "Who puts underwear on the breakfast table?"
"Oh. Oh. Ummmm ... they's clean. Akshully, they's brand new," he told us.
"So what's the deal?" We both asked, in unison.
"I wuz thinkin' a the last time I visited The Wall," DinkyDau Billy mused, "an I was thinkin' a that first Chrismus I spent in The Smile Hi, and I was thinkin' a absent companions."
Billy was clearly in a funk, and it was over the war, which he sometimes does. The War. Yep. That one. The one they really don't even mention other than in passing, in the history classes over at The Princeton of the Plains, and certainly not in very many other schools, these days.
"So what's the deal?" We both asked, in unison, again.
"Lookit the label on them shorts," he urged us.
We did.
"Hecho in Vietnam?" Leece was somewhat incredulous.
"Yeah. Yeah. An the label's in Spanitch, like you sees there, and in Englitch, right under it."
And it was. Yep. "Hecho in Vietnam" on one line, and "Made in Vietnam" on the other.
"Huh. Huh." That was me, pulling a Billy. I was wondering if our Peace-loving Socialist Peoples of the Republic of Vietnam were making these undies in the same underground factories they used to use for making weapons and uniforms. Nothing like a bit of capitalistic entrepreneurialism to beat swords into plowshares. Or clothing factories.
"So are you OK?" Leece enquired, solicitously.
"Huh? Huh?" There was a lot of that going around this morning.
"Are you OK, Billy?" Billy could get into some serious depressive states when he got to thinking about the war.
"Oh. Yeah. Yeah. I done adapted to the fack that the war's over, and this here proof a that."
"How have you done that?" Leece asked. She was quite concerned. So was I.
"Check this," he said, while he discreetly pulled up his shirt, and lowered his trousers' beltline enough to expose a bit of his dainty underthings.
He was wearing bright red "Hecho in Vietnam" Hanes briefs. "I gots the red ones to show there ain't no hard feelins," he confided.
So I guess the war is officially over, and peace reigneth over the land.
We snuffled the rest of Billy's breakfast burrito, while contemplating The Whichness of What, and The Thisness of That.
