It’s a taboo problem in our society no one wants to discuss,
but we’ve all been touched by it in some way. Either we or someone we know has
a story to tell about this sad situation, but only among friends and behind
closed doors. Most students are content to shake there heads, maybe take a
picture, and do nothing. Not Terry Dunn.
Terry Dunn wants everyone to wake up and smell the underwear,
“because it’s here, it’s real, and needs our help.”
What Terry means is this: he’s taking a stand against the
growing problem of underwear, particularly women’s panties, being abandoned in
strange places all over campus and student residencies.
“We’ve all seen them at some point. The balled-up, wrinkly
abandoned panties in the laundry room, or in the hallway, or in the corner of
the library. It’s sickening, how people treat their underwear,” says Terry
Dunn, a junior majoring in Community Service. “That’s why I’m starting this
shelter.”
Terry’s passion for “forgotten cotton” may seem excessive, but
like most heroes, he too has an origin story. Ten years ago, Terry had a pair
of lucky green underwear. Whether or not the underwear in question actually
possessed supernatural properties is up for debate, however Terry’s attachment
can’t be questioned. “That underwear meant the world to me. We were
invincible.”
One day Terry’s green boxers were drying happily on a clothesline when an
incredibly bored dog came by, snatched the boxers and tore them to shreds. He
tried to salvage the pieces, but as Terry would come to learn, you can try to
sew love back together all you want, but it’ll never fit the same way again.
“I would do”¦more than most people would, to get those boxers
back,” says Terry. “So I’m not only offering a safe place for the abandoned
panties that have to roam our streets looking dirty and unloved, but I’m
offering them a second chance. Because I wish I had a second chance.”
With that statement, I had to ask a question undoubtedly on
everyone’s minds: “It sounds a lot like you’re just collecting people’s lost
underwear”¦?”
Terry made a horrified face as he responded, “Only if by
“collecting’ you mean “saving’-“
“That’s still makes me nervous” I said.
“It’s my hope that with the help of my Panty Shelter, people
can come reclaim their lost underwear without fear or shame,” says Terry, fist
in the air. “I just want to do some good in this world, and if that means
reuniting people with their undergarments, then that’s what I’ll do!”
Let’s hope Terry can bring underwear out of the underground
and back to under our pants, where they belong.
