It started as the worst Boy Scout chore imaginable, it ended becoming campus folklore.

Tuesday Evening: September 1999: Queen Anne High School: Seattle

Our new patrol, a bunch of guys no other patrol wants, has earned the wrath of the troop’s red-headed devil Senior Patrol Leader Kyle Kelly. If you don’t know Kyle, he’s a perfectly-pressed, rule-obsessed future Eagle Scout who sees a Boy Scout meeting as his audition for dick of the year.

And tonight he’s coming down hard on our little patrol. He hates everything about us. How we dare to have fun at meetings, how we listen to punk rock albums, how we push back on his attempts at corporal punishment. He hates how we make the meetings fun, instead military inspired discipline drills. But no matter what Kyle throws at us, we still manage to survive and stick it out .

#

I know every troop has its dirty jobs, cleaning the meeting facility, organizing the storage closet, washing the gear. It sucks, but it needs to get done. So, tonight, when the time comes for Kyle to assign the troop chores, he saves the single worst job for our patrol, The Magnificent 7.

“The remaining patrol…” Kyle looks directly at us, and a smirk spreads across his face. I can see the satisfaction in his eyes, knowing he has saved what he considered the worst job for us.  

“Patrol boxes clean up duty! All seven boxes.” Kyle announces with pride. He’s happy he’s giving us the worst job available. 

The entire troop groans and then laughs at us. They know this is the worst job. They’re relieved it’s us instead of them. 

A patrol box in our troop is essentially a giant plastic storage bin, meant to hold all the pots, pans, camp stoves, and utensils a patrol needs for a weekend trip. Our troop also packs the tents in them. When a bunch of teenage boys are done with a patrol box after a weekend of camping, the contents become a biohazard zone. We’re talking moldy food residue, spilled fuel, and the silent, growing knowledge that you were definitely going to get tetanus from a fork.

We decide to start with the tents. Since we meet in the old gym at our High School, we take the tents out to a small lawn just outside the main doors.

The five of us, me, Sawyer, Alex, Adam and Arnaub get get to work setting them up. And the tents are just as disgusting as the rest of the patrol box. After the last camp trip, each tents was simply rolled up and tossed back into the patrol box. So, by the time we get to clean them every gum wrapper, melted candy bar, dirty socks, that stayed in the box, make the tent permanently rank.

“Assholes,” I curse to myself. 

“Final stretch,” I say, trying to sound confident. “Let’s each take a tent, sweep it out, and wipe it down. We’ll knock this out fast. Let’s get all the trash out of them. If we each take one tent, we’ll blow through this in no time.” I lead the group. 

We each get a small broom and took a tent.

Immediately after starting work, we hear a terrifying scream. We all dive out of our tents to see what’s wrong . We see Sawyer diving out of the last tent. 

“Nope! Nope! Nope!” He yells. “I have my limits. That I’m not handling. I’m out of here.” 

“What’s the problem?” Alex asks. 

Sawyer points inside the tent. We all gather around the door and look in. 

“You go first.” Alex pushes me. 

“Hell no.” I push back. “What’s in there? It reeks!” 

“You’re the Sr. Patrol Leader.” Sawyer points at me. “I think it’s your duty. All those in favor of making Robbie go in there, raise your hand.” All the other guys instantly raise their hands. Even from a distance where Burnside raises his hand. 

“I’ll get you guys for this,” I threaten them. 

I take a step to the tent door. The other guys, even though they won’t go in, bunch up right on my back and peer over my shoulder to see what’s inside. As soon as I pull back the tent door flap, I can smell how rancid it is. I hold my nose and slowly peer in. We all peer in and we see the foulest sight that singes itself into my brain. I can never erase that image from my mind for as long as I live. 

In the center of the tent lay our nightmare, a dark, wet mass that’s been stewing in its own juices for who knows how long. We can tell it’s still soaking wet after all this time, wrapped in the tent and stewing in a patrol box. It lay there in a mossy, stewing pile. At first, in the setting sunlight, it looks like an old pile of rags, or maybe a pair of old socks. 

“OK. That’s no big deal.” I say to the others. “I’ll just get a pair of gloves and a plastic bag and scoop it in.” But then we see it. And then we realize what it really is. And the horror fills us at the same time. A small ray of sunset light beams into the tent, and we see it. The elastic band. An elastic band confirmed our worst unspoken fears. The very thing that sends a wave of horror and nausea over us. Imprinted on the band is the one word confirming our dread. 

Hanes.  

This is somebody’s dirty underwear. 

It isn’t simply a pair of underwear that’s left behind. This is, without a doubt, the absolute worst underwear imaginable. Someone took this underwear to a week-long summer camp. This is underwear worn for several days straight. This is underwear worn on a ten-mile hike, then worn while canoeing, then worn under a pair of shorts while swimming in a dirty lake, sat in around campfires on an old log or in the dirt. You name it, from horseback riding to rock climbing, these shorts have seen it. 

We all fall back out of the door of the tent in disgust. 

“I’m not grabbing that.” Sawyer exclaims. 

“Not me.” Alex adds. 

“Me neither” Arnaub protests. 

“OK, here’s what we’ll do.” I gag. “Grab two of those brooms. Two of us will reach in and pick it up with the broom handles, then just throw it in the trash.” 

Adam quickly stands up and gets us two brooms. Sawyer takes one, and I take the other. We position ourselves at the opening of the tent and reach in with our broom handles. We pick up the soggy pants and slowly bring them out of the tent. But they slip off the end of our broom handles. Sawyer panics. He thinks they’re going to slide off and hit him. He panics and flings the tip of his broom handle away from him. The pants go flying. They head right towards Adam. Adam panics as the dirty underpants land on his shoes. 

“Shit!” Adam yells. He kicks wildly, sending the pants flying towards Alex. Alex has a roll of paper towels in his hand, and he swats squared up like a ballplayer. He swings hard and makes a direct hit. The dirty under pants let out a dome of mist that comprises of every disgusting liquid you can imagine. It’s a solid hit, and it’s heading right towards me! I use my broom to deflect the incoming soggy mess. The pants hit my broom handle and wrap around. Then they slowly slide down the handle towards my hand. I fling the pants back at Sawyer. He dodges the incoming mess and lets it hit the dirt. This is now a full-on game of filthy underwear dodgeball. Sawyer grabs a stick and tries to pick it up. It’s anybody’s guess who he’s going to fling it at next. But Sawyer stops. He bends over the offending underpants: he spots something. 

“Holy shit! Guys, look at this,” He calls for us as he starts laughing hysterically. 

We’re all hesitant to go near Sawyer. Knowing him, this is just a trick to get us closer so he can have a better shot flinging it at us. 

“Check this out.” He calls for us again. But this time, he can pick up the pants with his stick. He turns towards us. 

“Whoa!” we all yell. None of us are taking any chances at who he’s going to fling this mess at next. 

“I call time out.” Sawyer says. “You need to see this. This is awesome!” His eyes growing larger by the minute.  

He holds up the filthy underwear dangling from the end of his stick. 

“Take a good look. Tell me what you see.” He pokes the stick with the dirty shorts right at us.   

We all take one cautious step forward. We still don’t trust Sawyer. But then Alex is the first to see it and he bursts out laughing. Then Arnaub sees it, and he starts laughing too. Then Adam and I see it. It’s on the elastic waistband. In black Sharpie, someone wrote “PROPERTY OF KYLE KELLY” next to Hanes. His mom wrote his name in his underwear! 

Sawyer at once gets a crazy look in his eyes. We know what he’s up to. He has us at close range. He’s going to fling that dirty pair of underpants right at us. 

“Run!” I scream. We all scatter. Sawyer starts chasing after us like a madman. Some poor sap is going to get hit with those pants tonight. We all run in circles, screaming our heads off. Sawyer’s like a lone hyena trying to separate one of us from the pack. He circles and dodges and cuts us off at every turn. Then his big break comes. As I’m doubling back, trying to get out of his path, I slip on a loose patch of grass and fall right on my ass. Sawyer has me in his sights. He runs towards me with the evilest grin on his face. We lock eyes. I’m a dead man. The others see what’s happening and cringe in horror. Sawyer winds up like a lacrosse player going for the goal and lets loose. I close my eyes, waiting for the most disgusting, smelly, moldy, humiliating impact. ….. 

“What the…?” Sawyer’s confused. I open my eyes and see Sawyer standing a few feet in front of me. He has the perfect shot. What happened? Then the others burst out laughing. They run to us, knowing the threat is over. Sawyer and I are still confused. Alex reaches us and points upward. Then we see it. 

The underwear left the end of Sawyer’s stick too early. Instead of heading towards me, it shot straight upwards. And there it hung, 15 feet above our heads, wrapped around a power line that runs from the building to a pole at the end of the lot. And to make the scene even more glorious. In full view is the waistband, where everyone can clearly see Hanes. PROPERTY OF KYLE KELLY. 

Sawyer and the others fall to the ground around me, laughing hysterically. There’s no way we can get that down. Those shorts are now a permanent part of the scenery at Queen Anne High School, Seattle, Washington. We just lay there laughing. The sun is setting, so nobody is going to notice it until tomorrow. 

We all just lay on the grass laughing.

#

By morning, the word spread all across Queen Anne High. They stop dead in the courtyard, pointing upward at the filthy banner flapping in the breeze. By third period, everyone has seen it. By lunch, the story has grown to all sorts of origin stories and myths. But nobody guessed the truth. And we sure weren’t telling.

Week after week, the underwear hangs there. Rain doesn’t shake it, wind doesn’t free it. Every time you look up at that power line, there it is: PROPERTY OF KYLE KELLY in Sharpie, hanging for all the world to see.

By the end of the week it stops being underwear and starts being legend. Freshmen whisper about it on tours. Teachers ignore it, pretending not to notice. Seniors tell wide-eyed sophomores that if you spot it on the first day of school, you’d ace finals.

At Queen Anne High, it’s become our own Stonehenge, mysterious, immovable, unforgettable.

No one knows the full story, except for The Magnificent 7. We have our silent, satisfying monument. Kyle’s disgusting, embarrassing, mother-labeled underwear hangs there as a permanent, air-dried trophy of our small, gross victory. Every time we pass the gym lot, we look up, and the sight of those briefs swaying in the Seattle breeze remind us: sometimes, the universe delivers the perfect punishment for the dick of the year.