Jamie Stokes: the Underpants Index

Students of economics will already know where I'm going with this. For the rest of you, let me elucidate. The Underpants Index is a widely recognised indicator used to predict when an economy is emerging from depression. It was invented by Alan Greenspan, the US investor currently worth more than several small countries.

The theory is that sales of men's underpants closely follow the economic cycle. They are a good measure because everybody has to buy underpants – they are a necessity. When men are feeling richer, they buy underpants more often; when they are feeling poorer, they keep wearing their old pants for longer – nobody can see them after all.

I decide when to buy new underpants based on the underwear-drawer test. There is a critical moment every day in my life when I open the drawer and have to decide which underpants to put on. Ideally, this decision should be a quick one because, inevitably, I am not wearing underpants at this stage – a situation nobody wants to continue for longer than necessary, especially in January.

You'd think this would be an easy decision. When it isn't an easy decision, I know it's time to buy new underpants. In my perfect world, I would be ten years younger, my wife would be richer than Alan Greenspan and I would have a drawer full of identical underpants that never deteriorated. It is a sad fact that the least of these ambitions remains beyond my grasp.

The first pair of underpants in the pile are a little faded, the next are slightly too small, the ones after that have a small hole just below the waistband and I don't really like the colour. The fourth in the pile are my favourite underpants, but should only be worn on birthdays or when I'm writing for wp.pl. The fifth are acceptable. When I have to go through this stressful process of sorting more than three days every week, it's time for a trip to the underpants shop.

I hate going to the underpants shop, and it is always the same shop – who has the time or motivation to identify a different underpants shop? If my underpants shop ever closes, I may have to move to a different city where there is another branch. The biggest problem with the underpants shop is that, like all clothes shops, it is staffed by 22-year-old female students. The daily frustration resulting from difficult underwear choice has to be weighed against the discomfort of being a middle-aged man showing the 22-year-old girl at the cash register exactly which underpants I will be wearing for the next six months.

I think I’ve done as much as can be expected of me to boost Poland’s economy by braving the underpants shop so early in the year. I call on all my male readers to do the same. If the government could be persuaded to introduce a law requiring all female underpants-sellers to be blindfolded, it might prove the key to another Polish economic miracle.

* Jamie Stokes*