moving in mexico -- bathrooms

Someone should have told us these things.

Probably, our mothers. But they get blamed for everything.

Today's topic is going to the bathroom in Mexico. And I am not talking about the "put-the-used-toilet-paper-in-the-trash" lecture that causes northerners to stare in disbelief -- as if they are waiting for the punchline.

The dirty little secret I want to discuss applies only to the residents of tropical Mexico. You haughty highlanders can talk amongst yourselves.

For the rest of us, we will talk about "how do you get your underwear back up when you use a toilet that requires the sitting position?" For women, that is almost every time. For guys, not quite as often; but it does happen.

So, there you are. You need to take care of nature's call. (There will be a prize for the person who spots the most euphemisms.)

Off you go to the bathroom. Push down the clothes that need pushing (including your underwear), and then do what needs to be done.

You are now ready to leave once you get your clothes back into the position they once were. But the first thing that will not budge is your underwear. What was once a finely tailored piece of cloth has morphed into a tourniquet. No matter how you pull, it remains sweated to your thighs.

And if you can manage to roll it up your legs, once it gets to where it belongs, it is still a wad of cloth. You can pull and tug, but the best you can do is to get out most of the lumps. Until you put on a new pair, you will be stuck with what look like tumors on your behind.

A woman friend and I talked about this problem earlier in the week. She commented: "I bet you thought I never used public bathrooms for sanitary reasons. That doesn't bother me. I simply cannot get my underwear back on. In desperation, I will take them off and stuff them in my purse just to get back home."

So, there you have it. If you visit (or move to) tropical Mexico, be prepared to come up with your own creative method to fight the underwear roll.

Maybe your mother told you these things. If mine did, I must have been asleep on the toilet.