Though I am uncertain of the origin of this picture, it is an accurate model of the impromptu passion-play put on by my pants this afternoon…at the office.
Today I was working with several desktops; moving them between our storage area and my desk. As luck would have it, my pants held out until the very last one. The fortuitous part of this escapade is that the moon didn’t rise until I was in my office, so merely closing my door prevented witness of my indignity.
Thus a seam tear through my nether regions interrupted the otherwise pedestrian pants-wearing portion of my day. As I heard the stitches give way with their tell tale rip, I felt the panic rising within me. I immediately fought it down by imagining myself strutting around the office, button-down shirt tucked into my boxer-briefs, pants over one arm like a towel-holding butler, wearing a prince-charming smile with all the confidence it implies. I had the sudden jobicidal urge to do it, but I took a deep breath and pulled myself back from the brink. Invigorating as it might be, I wouldn’t fancy having to explain my actions to the ladies in Human Resources.
The next step was removing my pants to assess the damage. As you can see in that picture (again, not actually me), things didn’t look good. If I had let the rip run its course, my slacks would have transformed into chaps. With the critical eye of a seamstress and the skillful dexterity of a drunken longshoreman with shoe-horns instead of hands, I stapled the new “feature” of my pants shut.
Feature…I can just see the advertisement now… “Tired of using sanitary toilet seats in public restrooms? Does the heat have your crotchtal region sweltering with no relief in sight? Wishing you could catch a surreptitious tan to your junk? Disappointed at the lack of ants in your pants? Consider your leg-based garment woes a thing of the past! In fact, you never need remove these pants again! The last pair of pants you’ll ever buy!”
Having never previously “sewn” together a pair of pants with a stapler made for inch-high stacks of paper, I soon found that my strategy of following the previous seam line was a mistake. The ripped threads were not covered by my work, leaving the rear of the slacks looking decidedly…furry. A second line of staples was soon placed just after the first. Again, these were unusually long staples, but they were all I had. So I pulled out my pliers to try to bend the long barbs away from all possible wayward wanderings of my tender undercarriage.
With a grimace and visions of bicycle-seat-shaped cacti dancing in my head, I played guinea pig to my own creation. Luckily it was a success. I’d post photos, but Google would probably ban me and then contact the FBI. They, in turn, would contact local law enforcement who would likely raid my house and confiscate any and all pants-like objects.
But truly, this was the highlight of my day. In lieu of me running home to change my pants and losing an hour of work time, my boss allowed me to stay on the premises with one caveat: I was not allowed to leave my office. Working in IT, everyone expects that you can be interrupted at a moment’s notice and come running to fix their problem. I got to spend the remainder of the day on the phone, retelling the gruesome story of the wicked rear-ended disembowelment of my wholly innocent and undeserving trousers.
