You hear stories of people finding a stash of Aztec Gold buried in their backyard, or finding Aunt Lettie’s Diamond broach in a shoebox in the attic (street value: one mortgage and putting two kids through college at Dubuque State University and Auto Repair). I kept this in mind as I rallied myself to clean the garage yesterday.

We’ve only lived in our house for ten years, so I wasn’t prepared for the archaeological treasures I was about to unearth. Brushing away cobwebs that would test the fortitude of Indiana Jones, I found an innocent looking white kitchen trash bag sitting on the floor.

I don’t know how many times I stepped over this bag or kicked it aside as I navigated the narrow passage between exercise equipment (with little to no chance of ever being used) and empty cardboard boxes. But there next to my Rubbermaid tub of old National Geographic magazines lay an inestimable treasure. I’m speaking, of course, of dirty underwear.

It’s bad enough finding your own used granny panties in a bag, but I also had my daughter’s Wonder Woman panties. She’s a 36 year old toddler when it comes to underwear. I concluded that this was from a trip we made to Wilmington together three years ago … when my oldest grandson was negative zero years old.

I further concluded that it found a home in the garage after I removed the bag from my suitcase before putting my nondescript luggage on the shelf three feet away. It literally took me one second to forget that the bag was on the garage floor instead of the laundry room floor (also three feet away).

I’m sure my panties were delighted to avoid three extra years of washing, and fifteen extra pounds of me. They came from an ultra-mega pack of panties most of which have seen those extra fifteen pounds come and go (aside from the five pounds that accumulate over your lifetime each time you lose weight).

I buy the dowdy style that the manufacturer won’t even dignify with the name “panties.” My “cotton briefs” may be a bit boring, but I just can’t get my fat ass into the Wonder Woman panties.