This is a piece I found while cleaning out an old thumb drive. I totally forgot about my dream to become an underwear model until I stumbled over it. Anyways, I submitted it to Patagonia, but they didn't ever publish it. Maybe I'll resubmit. Hope you like it, it's quite different than anything I've ever wrote.
The Underwear Story (You can rename the story)
By Luke Mehall
March, 2008
My dream job would be being an underwear model. A friend helped me figure this out one day after I’d just purchased some new undies, and we were looking at the models on the packaging.
“What a job that would be, wearing underwear for a living.”
“You could do it,” she answered. “And since you’re a climber you could model for Patagonia.”
A quick check of the Patagonia catalog showed that they didn’t use the same advertising technique that we imagined, (my visual image was Victoria Secret style for the female models).
Winter. Salt Lake City, Utah. I’m on a date. Her house: throwback, psychedelic, complete with record player, Polaroid camera, and a little fireplace we sat next to and talked. She’s the intuitive type, the kind of girl who references her dreams often, and talks of love and living in harmony with the planet.
In her room later she’s showing me energy stones, and waxing poetic. For some reason I mention that I’m going to the Patagonia outlet store in the morning for a sale.
Then she begins to tell me about a dream she had. The focus of the dream: me just wearing a fire red pair of underwear.
The next morning my friend Sara and I are up at the crack of dawn, waiting in line behind a hundred or so shoppers as the line pours out winding around the store.
Later, waiting in line to check out, we’re behind a hundred and fifty or so people, and there’s a box of underwear. I tell Sara about the dream. She looks in and sees a fire red pair, tosses it into my bag, and says, “Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
The following night, I’m taking off my clothes. Clear sky, the stars above and mountains blanketed in snow. Sara and I are at the Midway hot springs. The scene is strange; Lynyrd Skynyrd blasts out of a trailer-truck. A fellow, who appears to be on some sort of crack, is doing flips in the 110 degree water. A fog emits from the springs and I can’t identify my surroundings other than the Skynyrd and the people in the springs. It feels like the beginning of a horror movie.
The idea of kicking back in the hot springs doesn’t seem relaxing anymore. Still there is hot springs to be soaked in. I strip down, almost all the way down to what else, my new red underwear. Was this the scene that my ladyfriend imagined? In my new underwear I then slipped into the heat and the weirdness of the hot springs.
I never got to hang out with the young psycadelic woman again, but I think of her every time I wear my red undies. I feel like I would feel comfortable in them in many different situations, and after the odd hot springs experience being in front of a camera would be pretty chill. So Patagonia if you have an opening for some underwear models, give me a call.
