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Everyday Underwear Doesn’t Do All This

        "So are you going into the jungle, or are you going into the juuung-le?" the REI sales associate asked. We were looking at jungle clothes, and the skater dude sales associate we had been speaking with excused himself to fetch the jungle fashion expert, who, with his tattooed arms, nose ring, and unwashed hair was quite possibly raised by pygmies.
        “We’re going to Costa Rica for a week and we’ll be going on a rainforest canopy tour for my fortieth birthday.” Tony has made sure that everyone we speak with knows the purpose of the trip. When a friend of ours turned forty a few years back, he just walked around his party naked announcing, “I’m forty and nobody can tell me what to do anymore.” Considering this approach, I’m fine when Tony announces to the Walgreen’s checker as she rings up a bottle of sunscreen, “Yeah, we need sunscreen in November. We’re going to Costa Rica for my fortieth birthday.”
        “A canopy tour,” the pygmy sales associate said as he ran his fingers through his goatee. “Any of these pants on this rack will work but you’re gonna wanna soak them in insect repellent. Jungle Juice will work fine.”
        “Jungle Juice?” I ask.
        “Oh yeah, we got it over there with the other bug repellants.” The Pigmy points past the tents and backpacks. “There are others you can use, but I think Jungle Juice is the best. It doesn’t have DEET. Whatever you get, you want to make sure there is no DEET because it will eat away at the fiber of the fabric.”
        “So you have to soak the clothes?” Tony asks.
        “Yeah, it’s real simple. And then you want to make sure you get a bottle of replant for your skin. I’d suggest something with DEET.”
        “Stuff that eats away the fibers of your clothing?”
        “Sure. You just wanna make sure you don’t get it too close to the eyes.”
        “I imagine.”
        “The other route you could go is to get these clothes here with Buzz-Off Insect Shield, which has the repellent infused in the fiber.”
        “Infused?”
        “Yeah, you don’t need to soak these, and after maybe fifty washings, you only loose maybe three to five percent effectiveness.”
        Mid-November doesn’t find a variety of species in jungle clothing hanging around northern Illinois, so we’re trying on different shades of khaki. The pant legs zip off to make shorts, and a jungle shirt has air flaps (called “climate control ventilation system”) in the armpits. I’m trying my hat at headwear and finding the Steve Erwin look not at all flattering.
        My stupid American tourist anxiety is only launched into overdrive when a fellow shopper strolls in from biking gear.
        “You must be going to the jungle?”
        “Yeah,” I say, adjusting a straw hat, my enthusiasm not much more exciting than the jungle beige of my outfit.
        “Which Jungle?”
        “Costa Rica.”
        “Oh, wow. It’s beautiful. You’re gonna really love it. I went a few years ago. Went on a mission to save the sea turtles. Stayed in a little hut on the beach that sometimes had air conditioning. Sometimes didn’t.” She thumbed through the repellant-infused apparel as if her memories were hanging on the hangers. “Got really sick when I got back. Went to the doctor and he asks me if I got the malaria vaccination.”
        “Malaria?” The action-back pleat of my shirt opens up like a sail when I hold my arms out in front of the mirror.
        “Yeah. Ends up it wasn’t malaria. No idea what it was, but you should think about the vaccination. And bring plenty of DEET, only don’t dip your clothes in the DEET. Destroys the fiber.” I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one who didn’t know about DEET. “And keep it away from your eyes. That Bug Off is good stuff. Costs more, but well worth it.”
        The Bug Off did not protect me from pesky shoppers.
        “When do you go?” She asks.
        “Tomorrow.”
        “Oh, well, too late for the malaria vaccination. Make sure you get some good socks, though. Moisture wicking is what you want. Good luck.” She was gone like a monkey swinging through the clothing racks.
        Picking out the most flattering shade of beige on my beige skin, we head over to the socks. Tony delivers his Costa Rica birthday line.
        “I think it’s too late for the malaria vaccination, but I’m told we should get a good pair of socks,” I tell the shoe guy.
        “So what are you looking for in a sock? Ankle or knee-high? Are you like trekking and hiking or are you just doing mild walking?” It’s a Costa Rica inquisition, and I have no idea.
        “Were going on a canopy tour and a zip line,” Tony says. The silence hits me like Tarzan smashing into a tree trunk: we’re going to a jungle, a real jungle. This is no Rainforest Café where stuffed monkeys swing through the crowd avoiding pre-programmed rainstorms. It occurs to me that I’ve been misled by the Web sites. This isn’t going to be a jungle stroll along a wheel-chair accessible path with a climate-controlled interpretive center where I can buy an ice cold Coca-Cola from a refreshment stand and take Ansel Adams-like photographs from behind a plate glass window.
        We are going to be infused in nature.
        A rainforest-sized roach brushes up behind me.
        “GET IT OFF!!” I yell, turning around, swatting Tony. “GET IT, Oh--”
        “What are you doing?”
        “I’m, um, never mind. I’m looking for socks.”
        “Well, you have a lot of choices here,” the sock expert said. “You just want to avoid cotton. Cotton is not your friend in the jungle.”
        We should have had a shopping cart for all the jungle accessories and chemicals that sound as inviting as a tropical cocktail.
        “You ready?” Tony asked.
        “Well, I’m thinking that maybe we should look at the underwear.”
        “Why?”
        “The sock guy said cotton is not our friend, and we only have cotton underwear.”
        “Yeah, so?”
        “Jungle. Hot. Humid. Moist. Rash.”
        “Oh.”
        Even the underwear section was overwhelming. We found a package with a photo of an attractive torso. The label read, “17 countries. 6 weeks. And one pair of underwear.”
        “This should do it,” I said to Tony pulling the package off the rack.
        “They’re twenty-five dollars!”
        “But look,” I said, pointing to the back, “it says right here, ‘Your everyday underwear doesn’t do all this.’”