"Boxers or Briefs? Depends.."

Judi, my wife, is to the day a year and half older than me. According to her she married a man younger than her so she could raise me like she wanted. Not sure how that worked out, but after almost 26 years of being married, come next month, I suppose I've proven to be at least tolerable.

Just before her 55th birthday, she received in the mail a solicitation from AARP. The envelop was clearly addressed to her, but she wrote on the outside in bold letters, This Must Be For You!" "Hardly," I assured her. When my solicitation arrived a year and a half later, I in turn wrote on the envelop, "They're still hot to trot to get you as a member!" "Fat chance," was her reply.

Now six years later we receive in the mail last week the coup de grace of personal hygiene assumptions, a solicitation for DEPEND underwear, replete with a $2.00 saving coupon! Kimberly-Clark Worldwide Incorporated exhibits an obvious confidence that people of our age must surely need this product, as they provided a two full page, front and back, "sneak peek" advertisement touting their new and improved "underwear for men and women" that now comes in a new look package. Like I care what the package looks like.

Here's a brief expose for the content of the letter... "We have exciting news for you! You have told us about your lives, your needs and your desires for discretion and mobility. We're excited to announce our newest products - DEPEND Underwear for Women and Depend Underwear for Men. These new styles go beyond the pink and blue on our packaging to deliver the fit, discretion and customized protection specific to a woman or a man. Providing absorbent protection where a man and a woman need it most."

First of all it takes a wee bit more to get me all worked up into a tizzy. If DEPEND Underwear is from this point forward to be the high water mark (pardon the pun) of what excites me in life, I've got a lot more issues than merely having difficulty in holding my water! And just who is this "you" they have allegedly talked to about my life, my needs and my desires for discretion? It wasn't me. Was it you? Let me be discrete... When I start blabbing to some Madison Avenue type that I need a particular type of undergarment that is more absorbent and comfortable to wear than my present underwear of choice, then buy me a roll of duct tape so you can put me out of your misery. Who wants to hear that? And as for designing the product to "provide absorbent protect where a man and a woman need it most," with whom in mind did they previously design the product for? Martians? Seems to me that even I could figure out with little effort where such a product ought to place the emphasis for the most bang for the buck.

Listen, here's the bottom line. We each came into this world with no bladder control and for the majority of us we'll eventually go out the same way. It's God's little additional joke to keep us humble. As infants we didn't care or know any better. Unfortunately, if we live long enough, unknowingly we'll adopt the same attitude. In the interim, I'll just discretely piddle through life as best I can. Thanks DEPENDs, but, for the time being, no thanks. For the moment, I'm holding my own.