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It was the Fall of 1996. O.J. Simpson’s trial was just beginning. A little known band named Nirvana released From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 6,000 for the first time ever. Banyamulenga Tutsis of Laurent Kabila in Zaire seized Uvira and proceeded to kill Hutu refugees. And love… love was in the air.

‘Twas Homecoming season for this humble high school senior. I was dating a comely young princess, the Countess Amy, heiress to an inflatable furniture manufacturing empire. My friend Allen was courting the Duchess Laura, a niggling harpy that incessantly broke his heart and blew his friends.

Homecoming is a vastly different experience for guys than it is for girls. Girls view the night as a God-given right to wear a pretty dress, spend hundreds of dollars on their hair and makeup, wear flowers on their wrists and spend the entire night dancing with their girlfriends and ignoring their dates while the poor boys squirm in their suits. Guys view it as an opportunity to get a blowjob at the after party.

However, Allen and I were not your typical guys. We really were just interested in having a good time (and no, not that “hey sailor” sort of good time) with our ladies and showing them that they were special. However, we lacked some of the appropriate gear for the excursion (a couple of new ties, cologne, grappling hook, flamethrower, etc.) so we went shopping.

Shopping, like Homecoming is just plain different for guys. Girls love to shop for no particular purpose. For them, it’s the journey and not the destination that counts. For guys, it’s all about the destination. Hell, that’s why we act like such idiots all the time, and with such disregard for our own safety – we’re just trying to hurry up and arrive at our final destination like Freud’s Thanatos tells us. Allen and I had taken this destination-not-the-journey way of living (and shopping) to unimaginable heights. Our only aim was to exit the store as quickly as possible, no matter what the situation. It was not at all unusual to exit a grocery store after a beer ‘n snack run with adult diapers and allergy pills as well. The key to success in these situations is to grab items off of shelves and displays that you think you can identify via your peripheral vision without actually looking directly at them. Also, never stop moving. Don’t stop to think. Just get what you need and get the hell out of there.

During this particular shopping excursion we ended up in a JCPenneys or a Kauffmans or something. Allen mentioned that he needed new underwear. And so, displaying exquisite form, Allen grabs what appears to be a three-pack of tighty-whities from a tub of said item and we continue on.

Later, at Allen’s house, we prepare. Shit, shower, shave. Dress. Preen. Hip flask full of Jäger? Check. Cologne applied with frightening zeal? Check. Lone condom, mainly as a joke? Check. I’m ready to go and I’m waiting anxiously. Allen is right behind.

Allen comes downstairs. He is visibly disturbed and walks with a shambling gait. I ask him what is wrong. He responds that the underwear he bought are tight, and that he may have bought them “a size too small.”

I suggest changing them before we pick up the girls, but we’re already a little late. We predict that the article is cotton, and that it will stretch to allow more room for Allen’s prodigious junk. We are satisfied with this assessment. We split.

We pick up the girls and head to the restaurant. Being seated has presented Allen with a whole other set of challenges with regard to his new underwear, and while the girls may not realize it, I can see it all over his face. In a quick aside in the lobby I suggest to him that he free the beast. Before he can respond we are met by the hostess and seated.

A few more agonizing minutes pass before Allen announces… that he has to use the bathroom.

It’s a nice bathroom at a nice restaurant. Two stalls (one of which is wheelchair accessible), two urinals, two sinks. Dark wood. Gray marble. Moodily lit. Soft Flamenco guitar music dances across the meadow-scented air.

Allen enters, a lit Winston dangling from his mouth. Sensing the need to be discreet and not simply remove his pants in the middle of a public restroom–this surprised even me–Allen enters the wheelchair accessible stall, as the other stall is in use.

As Allen begins to remove his shoes and pants, he notes that the gentleman in the neighboring stall is engaged in what can only be described as a spirited bodily function, complete with splashing, grunting, and an unpleasant odor. He’s completely ruining the aesthetic. Unfazed, Allen continues with single-minded resolve to rid himself of these accursed underthings.

He unties his shoes and removes them. He undoes his belt, unzips his pants and removes them as well. Finally, it’s a long slide down both legs, then over to one toe. And with a quick flick of the big toe he launches the offending article… under the divider into the next stall.

One can only speculate as to what message his fellow bathroomgoer thought Allen was trying to convey. “Here, try these on?” “Use this to wipe?” “Please accept my invitation for anonymous gay bathroom sex?”

Whatever his understanding was, he immediately zipped up and high-tailed it out of there. I stress immediately because his departure took place without a wipe, a flush, or a washing of hands. Bottom line: worst dinner companion ever.

Allen retrieves the offending underwear. As he rises and begins to fetch his pants, he begins to sense that he is being watched. There is a larger than usual gap between the wall of the stall and the wall proper, with Allen’s pants hanging on a hook on the stall wall that acts as a sort of curtain. He retrieves the pants and sees an eye.

The eye belongs to a small child – six or seven years old – and is opened wide in terror. Allen simply stares back in blank defiance. “That’s right, I’m pantsless in a men’s room stall. That’s right, there’s a cigarette dangling out of my mouth. That’s right, I have quantities of hair that would make a Bonobo blush,” he seems to project with the full force of his being at the terrified youth. Said youth makes haste to the door and exits, likely making mental notes of key details of the experience for recitation during visits with mental health professionals later in life. Serves him right. Nosy little fucker.

Finally, the restroom is seemingly empty, but our boy isn’t out of the woods just yet. Allen wastes no time in re-robing and leaves the stall at the same time that a friendly, elderly man walks in and begins to avail himself of the urinal. Allen decides to do the same. They engage in a friendly banter about the weather and move to the side-by-side sinks to wash up.

Allen spruces up in the mirror. The elderly man finishes washing his hands at the same time that Allen absentmindedly sets the underwear down on the counter and begins to wash his hands. They both pause in perplexed silence to look at the underwear. A startling discovery is made.

A lone tag protruding from the lump of cloth answers the last of Allen’s questions. It reads “Hanes Her Way.” Allen was wearing panties.

The final player in this bathroom visit gone awry comports himself much more graciously than the others. He meets this presentation of women’s undergarment’s by Allen with stone-faced indifference. He simply concludes by drying his hands (yet still with a noticeable degree of haste) and leaves quietly. Allen finishes as well and dries his hands on the underwear. Exeunt. Scene. A new chapter in the diabolical epic of Allen’s bathroom chronicles is written.

Epilogue: The rest of the night is a bit fuzzy. A Jäger- and hormone-induced fog. We did those things that kids did at formal high school dances, changed our clothes, drank clandestinely, and went home. Amy later went on to break my heart, but it turns out she didn’t put out anyway, so fuck her.

What other hilarious misadventures await Allen? Here’s just a taste of the stories to follow:

-A visit to a Turkish prison bathroom leads to sodomy – and hilarity ensues!

-Allen stumbles into a women’s bathroom high on meth at a traditional southern cotillion while the debutantes are getting dressed - and hilarity ensues!

-A farting contest in a Denny’s bathroom in Kansas City turns deadly - and hilarity ensues!

-What should have been an uneventful Canadian border crossing sends Allen on an epic quest to find a federal bathroom, and when he arrives… hilarity ensues!

Stay tuned.