Canada Day In The Land Of The Rising Sun and The Mystery Of The Underwear Thief

Now I am not overly patriotic or anything but I sit here now wondering if I can somehow add gravy and cheese to noodles to form some sort of Japanese poutine hybrid. This is my first Canada Day outside of the country and though I am not exceptionally glum about missing out on the festivities I am missing fireworks. I wonder if the people upstairs would get angry is I set a few off in my apartment? Past Canada Days have been spent in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto and Cornwall while next year’s spectacle will find me in Vancouver. Ottawa has been my favorite local thus far to take in the spectacle for obvious reasons. For three years I was part of the large crowds gathered on the Hill seeking out my choice spot to view the biggest firework display in the Nation. This year I sit in my underwear listening to Blue Rodeo and wishing I had a Beavertail. There are no fellow Canadians around to celebrate with so I have spent the day watching episodes of Mystery Science Theatre (with Canadian content, of course) and sending little virtual Canadian flags to all the folks back home. The MP3 rotation has all been Canadian artists. These are just little ways to bring Canada into my little Japanese abode. Oh, and I made myself a Mountie outfit out of cardboard and newspaper. I hope all of you back home have enjoyed the fireworks and have spared a little thought to this Canuck in a land without poutine, Tim Horton’s donutes and Celine Dion. Well, actually, maybe it’s not all bad. But today has not been only about Canadiana, my friends. I am also trying to solve a mystery.

The plot of this great quandary begins with my last washing two weeks ago, back when there was still ample sun to dry my clothes. I hung them on the line outside the window and would pull them in a few hours later. Nothing suspicious or suspect here, right? Cut to two days ago when I was returning Nostrodamus back to the edge of the rudders of the window, the night I found the screen that is currently providing a wonderful breeze and preventing puddles beneath me. I mention these occurrences as they will factor into this puzzle. For now remember that I was in very close proximity to my clothesline two days ago and certainly would have noticed anything that may have been out of place. Last night was a typical recent bout with insomnia. I just couldn’t get myself under and so I was up killing time online until sheer exhaustion overtook me sometime around 7am. I would wake up today at one in the afternoon. I had been planning a Canada day excursion to a Wakayama beach to take a plunge in the Pacific. I’d now be lounging about in beautiful white sand imported from Australia and bathing nude with strange Japanese men in a cliff-side Onsen (hot spring) if it were not for the rains of Tsuyu pouring down outside now. At 7am the clouds were already edging from gray into black and I realized the day trip was a bust so I slept into the afternoon, woke up, checked my email and wandered over to the curtains to see if the day had cleared up any. The sky may have been a lighter shade of dismal but far from blue. I was in the process of throwing the curtains back so I could proceed back into nudity when I noticed something blowing in the window. No, it wasn’t the answer but the underwear. A pair of blue undies were flapping on my clothesline direction in front of the part of the window that opens to the outside. Somebody wanted me to see them.

I gazed upon this sight for a few moments, glancing around to see if anybody was watching me. The streets were empty. It was just me and the undies. I don’t know what expression I had on my face but I can be sure it resembled something like a man who has just discovered an extra testical growing on his elbow: surprise, shock and strange fascination. I reached out to touch the blue briefs swaying on the line but recoiled. What if this were a trap. I’ve read about Russian assassins placing explosive underwear on clotheslines but I never thought could happen to me. Of course there was also the hygiene issue to think about. A man finds a strange pair of undies hanging on his clothesline he has to wonder what they have been touching. The thought then occurred to me. These looked oddly familiar. I raced to my drawer of underwear, pulled up a pair and returned to compare. To my horror the pair of undies on the clothesline were indeed my own. They bore the same Fruit of the Loom logo as the others in my closet. There was no way they could have been there two days before as I would have touched them in my pulling of the shutters. This could only mean that somebody took my underwear off the line two weeks ago as they dried, kept them for that time frame and returned them today placing them in a distinct spot so that I would see them the moment I looked out the window. AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! I yanked the undies off the line and rushed them off to the garbage. There was no way I was wearing them now. My mind flashed to sick experiments conducted by a sick person in a dark basement. The torture my briefs must have endured. Sure, they looked relatively fine, even smelled as though the had been washed… Wait…wait! I stuck my nose into my laundry detergent. AHHHHH!!!! It was not the same smell. Somebody had not only taken my underwear from the line and kept them for two weeks but in the course of those two weeks they also found the need, and some reason, to wash them. Okay, it was very nice of the undie thief to clean up after him or herself but I could only imagine what was being removed from what once only touched my own nether regions. I gave thought to bringing the underwear to some sort of furnace to have them cremated but I instead double bagged the undies and dumped them in the train station garbage can. Sure I was destroying possible evidence but if you think I had trouble sleeping before there is no telling how wide-eyed I’d be knowing a pair of defiled undies were lurking in my trashcan. I have no idea who the undie thief may be. No clues were left at the scene. There were no footprints and I left my X-Files forensics kit (Free with the purchase of 30 Dana Scully action figures). Of course initial suspects would have to be my ever so silent neighbors. Why are they so quiet? What are they hiding? Could it be a den of stolen undergarments used for their perverse cult of pleasure? This case is just beginning and all avenues have yet to be explored but you can be sure the next time my undies are on the clothesline I will be keeping a close eye on them, maybe purchase myself some spy cameras and hidden microphones or, better yet, get myself a Spider Tracer and track those buggers to the den of sin they’ve been kidnapped to. I don’t know why somebody would want to take my underwear but next time I will be ready. Oh, and between you and me, I hear underwear thieves really hate it when you lace their object of desire with itching powder and hide a trained attack weasel inside. You’ve messed with the wrong guy’s undies, bub.