I had the opportunity to chat on the phone with a dear sweet friend of mine from Oregon recently. I don’t talk on the phone much, except for the occasional call to the mother of all mothers (in-law) to check on her, and the same frequency of calls to the ne’er do well brother who has taken his lounge act to Missouri.

“Ah ain’t found a karaoke bar in Amish country yet, but once they hear me sing ‘Mack the Knife’ I think I’ll be set!”

Hate to burst his bubble but the reason there ain’t no karaoke bar in Amish country is ’cause the Amish don’t use ‘lectricity.

Anyway, my friend Delilah started telling me about the sudden monsoon that sprang up from out of nowhere and has still got her swirling around like Dorothy in the eye of the tornado.

She was at home tending to her little grandbabygirl, comfy in her T-shirt and a pair of old — and I mean old — boxer shorts that had a “cheeky” statement on the back and front.

“You know, I was just sittin’ at home with the baby, it was getting late, and I was waiting for The Man to get home so I could put the baby to sleep.”

The Man had gone to a meeting and had left the house without taking his medication.

When the time had come and gone for him to be home, she started pacing.

Her phone rang and The Man was on the other end.

“Where you at, baby?” he slurred into the phone.

“Oh Lord...where are you?” she asked.

“I don’t know...but...” kkkksssshhhhhh....the line went dead.

She tried calling back several times and managed to reach him before “kkkkssshhhhh” the line went dead again.

A few minutes later her phone rang and a voice asked, “Do you know someone named ‘The Man’?”

“Yes, that’s my husband ... where are you?”

He told her where they were, that he’d been flagged down, and said, “Whatcha want me to do with him?”

“Call 911. I’m on my way.”

She called the babymama and said, “Come and get her ... there’s trouble in River City.”

While she was waiting on babymama to arrive, she flew frantically around the house trying to find something suitable to wear.

“I have three pairs of pants that fit, and they were all in the washing machine.”

She decided that she would just have to brave it in her comfy cheeky clothes and pray that she could somehow get through the ordeal without having to leave her car.

When she arrived at the site of where The Man had pitstopped, her heart fell into her stomach.

“My Lord. There were police cars, fire trucks, ambulance ... lights flashing ... all kinds of commotion. I knew I was sunk.”

She slowly rode to where some officers were standing by and rolled her window down.

“Officer, that’s my husband.”

One of the officers instructed her to pull over to the side of the road and get out of her vehicle.

As she pulled over, she prayed hard for the wording on her boxers to disappear.

No such luck.

God has an amazing sense of humor.

She got out of her car and stood against it, explaining to the officers what was going on.

“He should have had taken that medicine like I told him to!”

But we all know, men don’t listen. Especially when they’re being told to do something.

The EMTs had the situation well in hand and were bringing The Man back around to reality.

As she tried to cover the fact that she was wearing no foundation garments while keeping her backside firmly planted on the driver’s side door, The Man — in his newfound euphoria — began waving his arms and shouting out her name so that all would be familiar with her and the name of their business.

“It just seemed to go from bad to worse...” she lamented.

Not able to keep her backside planted any longer, she had to walk over to help him get into the car.

I told her not to worry because those present would not remember her face, but they would sure remember her boxer shorts.

“And they aren’t even mine! They’re his! I bought them as a joke for his birthday years ago!”

I laughed at her misfortune and said, “Good thing you don’t have to go to court over it. The judge might ask, ‘And are you the person who was wearing the boxer shorts that said...’ ‘Yes Your Honor, but they aren’t even mine!”

Delilah further explained that she discovered something about The Man that she had heretofore been completely unaware of.

When she took him to get his vehicle the next morning, the battery had died.

Not only did he not carry jumper cables with him, he didn’t know how to get “the lid” open.

“Do you mean ‘the hood’?” she asked.

“I guess so...”.

She had to show him how to jump start his ride because he’d never done it before.

“All these years, and he didn’t know how to hook up jumper cables. And didn’t know how to unlatch the hood.”

What was so bad about that, you ask?

She was still wearing her cheeky boxers. The ones that read on the back: You want some of this? and on the front said: Come and get it.

“Funny when you’re 20. Not 40.”

I had to disagree.

Funny at 20.

Hilarious at 40.