Long Underwear

Isn't it wonderful to be home? To sleep in your own bed? To eat your own food? To water your own plants, to use your own shower, to sit in your favorite chair, to drink from your own cup, to hear your own birds, to smell your own towels?

It is. But there is also something wonderful about having none of it. The Great Plotnik has now purchased his Great Long Underwear for his journey to The Cape of It Better Damned Well Be Good Hope. It is winter down there. Since Plotnik last wore long underwear, fabrics have changed. They are no longer wooly and itchy and $4.95. They are synthetic and light and $28.

The last time The Great Plotnik wore long underwear he was high on a mountain in Colorado. Since then he has traveled to many lands without them, and only wished he had them once. Last April, Plotnik and Ducknik were on a mountain in the country that is half in Europe and half in Asia. The wind was howling from Europe at Asia, and at Asia from Europe, and Plotnik, as always, was right in the middle. Oh, Mama, it was cold. He could have used those $28 synthetics, a tureen of the hot tea they serve you when they're trying to sell you a carpet, and a blowtorch.