By Chua Lam

I have a friend who is a justice of the peace in the mainland,and when I ate out with him I asked what cases he’d heard recently.

“Same old same old—pilfering,purloining, peculation,” he said.

“Can you think of any interesting ones?” I asked him.

“Oh yeah,” he said after some thought, “There was this crazy case of voyeurism.”

“Really? Peeping at hot girls in the shower?”

“No. Peeping at ugly men in the john. They caught him red handed in a public bathroom.”

“So, is the gay lifestyle becoming common in the mainland?” I inquired curiously.

“That’s what I thought at first.” My pal said, “I looked at him sitting there sulking with no defense attorney and kind of felt sorry for him, I asked him if he wanted me to appoint one for him,but he declined. He wanted to defend himself in court. I told him it was best not to fly by the seat of his pants, but he insisted. He said no lawyer knew more about his case than he did.”

“Know what?” I was growing more curious with each passing moment.

The old judge debriefed me on the situation, “Underpants!”He exclaimed, “Said he was the self-proclaimed ‘Sultan of Skivvies,’ with his own factory and everything.”

“Which factory? If it’s a famous brand, I might have heard of it here in Hong Kong.”

“He has a factory, but he said he didn’t have his own brand but that he was just the underwear supplier to every brand in the world. But if he had to do retailing too, he would have no time to do any research.”

“What research?”

“Research on the planet’s perfect underpants! Said he wouldn’t give up even a single opportunity to check out the dudes’ jockey shorts.” The judge explained.

“But it’s just underwear. I mean there are just so many kinds that a person could wear.”

“That’s what I said. But then the defendant got his shorts in a knot. He looked at me with this look of contempt and told me I didn’t know what the flippity jibbits I was talking about, which really cheesed me off. I told the guy he’d better explain the profundities of the underwear and fast, or the only undershorts he was going to be wearing would be the ones with black and white stripes.”

“So, what did he say? That silk skivvies are the best?” I asked.

“He said that no material could ever be more comfortable than good cotton.”

“Cotton?” I said incredulously.“Everyone’s unmentionables are cotton fiber. What’s so special about that?”

底裤大王的案子

文/蔡澜

我的朋友是内地的法官，一起吃饭时，我问他：“最近审了什么案子？”

“来来去去都是一些走私的。”他说。

“想不起什么有趣的吗？”我问。

“对了，”他说，“有一起偷窥案。”

“偷看什么，女人？”

“不。是男人偷看男人，在公共厕所里抓到的。”

“同性恋在内地开始普遍起来了？”

“起初我也那么想。”法官说，“看他没有律师，问他要不要派一个给他。他说，没有什么律师比他知道得更清楚，要自己答辩。”

“知道些什么？”

法官说：“底裤呀，他自称是底裤大王。”

“什么厂？出名的话在香港也会听过。”

“工厂是有的，不过他说没有自己的牌子，只是替全世界的名牌代工。如果自己也做销售的话，就没时间做研究工作了。”

“什么研究工作？”

“研究天下最完美的底裤呀，所以他不放过任何机会，看别人穿的是什么。”法官说。

“底裤不就是底裤，穿来穿去都是那几种。”

“我也是这么说的呀，不过当事人轻蔑地看着我，大声骂我什么都不懂。这下子我可生起气来，要他说出，一条底裤到底有什么奥妙，不然，即刻重判。”

“他怎么说？丝质的最好？”我问。

“他说任何材料都比不上棉。”

“棉？我们穿的都是棉织的呀。”我说。

“不是普通棉，要用海岛棉。更好的，是埃及棉。”法官说。

“什么叫海岛棉？”

“他解释说是美国的产品，至少要两英寸以上的长棉才算及格，每条长度要经过美国纺织协会检验，才发证书的。”

“那么埃及棉呢？”

“比海岛棉更长更细，织出来的布比丝还要光滑。”

“棉质的哪能比得上丝。”我说。

“他说，那要看多少支了。”

“什么叫支？……