Saturday Morning Thoughts in Underwear

Saturday morning. Why check the time? Why check the temperature? The heating’s on, and there’s no urgent need to go. The cat’s playing with the plants. The dogs are wandering around, embarking on their daily quest to unearth some hidden treasure, possibly overlooked by the all-powerful Lord Dyson. I should check the temperature, but the mystery of what time it is fades as my watch flashes 11 AM with a chime. Did I sleep in late or get up too early? Who’s to judge? The reader? Definitely not my neighbor across the street, who sips his coffee in his underwear. I, too, sit here writing in mine.

Saturday morning is, for many, the time of Captain Underpants—a hero to the mundanely heroic tasks of a weekend morning. For men like us, this means vacuuming, loading and unloading the dishwasher, de-hairing the shower and sink, putting away at least a few clothes from the drying rack, and wiping away crumbs left from a 4 AM snack while we processed weekday concerns. Once these noble deeds are done - or not- we can finally put on a pair of pants.

I won’t deny that this privilege—a warm home, carefree, without concern for gas bills—is not universal. Forget luxury cars, prime real estate, and high-end brands; one of the main reasons I’ve worked hard is for the luxury of sitting on a Saturday morning in my underwear, writing, even when it’s… well, 11 degrees Celsius outside. Okay, it’s not that cold; I’ll turn off the heat when I’m done. True privilege is the freedom from worrying about heat, from fretting over gas bills. Oddly, I feel a strange satisfaction in paying my gas bill at the end of the year. Others curse the utility company; I remember, a bit nostalgically, when the power company employee knocked to shut off my electricity, only to say, “Since you live here, I won’t do it. Please sort it out.” I was 28, struggling. Now, at 41, I still struggle, though in different ways. Saving on energy bills just isn’t one of them.

Perhaps this attitude stems from a lingering “poor mentality,” like people who grew up with food scarcity and now identify with walruses. Or like skinny women from struggling backgrounds choosing larger men, ostensibly for money, but perhaps because a larger partner subconsciously quiets the hunger-related anxieties of the past. When I struggled, I wouldn’t have minded if my partner had joined an elephant herd. But as my situation improved, I found myself drawn to more proportionate, eventually thinner women, a shift reflecting my easing fear of scarcity.

Today, having once experienced real hunger, I eat out almost daily, with zero regrets. Do I feel it in my pocket? Do I care? No. We live once, and if you’re saving instead of living, what happens if something takes you away? Your savings go to your ungrateful kids, who may spend it on nonsense—or to relatives who barely knew you. If you didn’t write a will (as many don’t), the state decides, possibly donating your hard-earned savings to a local zoo or cemetery.

Though we know we won’t live forever, we often assume we’ll live a long time, even though we’ve all known people who thought the same and are no longer with us. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not against saving but against living exclusively for the future. Even if you’re around to see it, the experience you wanted might feel outdated. Life is about experiences, about now. And now is the time to put my pants on.