While shopping in Wal-Mart, I noticed a strange pair of jogging shorts. Sure, they were probably labelled as 'outdoor activewear' or 'exercise apparel' or some such nonsense. But I'm going to call them jogging shorts. Anyway, the packaging on these jogging shorts claimed that they had 'anti-microbial' properties. Though my initial reaction was one of laughther and ridicule, I got to thinking about them more deeply.
Do people ever wash their clothing anymore? Did I miss some pivotal moment in the water conservation movement? Back in the old days, we used to take off our dirty, sweaty clothing. We'd keep it all in one place, a magical box called a laundry hamper. At intervals dictated by day, time, or necessity, we would use a washing machine to clean the clothing. The clothing would then be clean but also wet, so it would need to be dried in the air or in another machine called a dryer.
I also wonder this: Are anti-microbial jogging shorts the result of consumer demand? Are there legions of joggers out there, bobbing along to their iPods and worrying about the bacterial orgies going on at their genitals? If I was a paranoid jogger, I'd use these thoughts as motivation! I'd pretend that I was running away, faster and faster, always one baby step ahead of my bodily shame.
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