abash [uh-bash]

We are high school students, sampling the world of absent-parent covert-house-party night life (and no, I’m not confusing abash with a bash).

Steven, though firmly established in our clique, is the frequent target of derision, though his habitual obnoxiousness seems to us to demand it. I’m in Steven’s room with our pal Rob who snoops through Steven’s drawers while the party’s nucleus hovers elsewhere.

“Oh my god,” he says. I look. He’s holding a pair of white skivvies pinched between two fingers. Mostly white, that is. There’s an ungodly stripe present; the epic mother of all underwear stains.    

We entirely fall apart; literally falling to the floor and rolling back and forth in helpless hysterics. That old idiom is no exaggeration; not this one time, anyway. I laugh so long and so hard that I’m in pain and tears stream down my face, an experience I’ve not had before (or would again).

Perhaps it was the pounding of our fists on the floor which brings Steven rushing into the room. “What’s so funny?” he says, but we can’t catch our breath to reply. Perhaps he spies the open drawer. Perhaps that’s why he says, “Oh. I think I know.”

Poor guy. I felt sorry for him. I couldn't stop laughing but I felt sorry for him too.