Talk About Getting "Ripped!"

Last night I had to hike my tired old (i.e. lazy) self out to the store to buy some new pants. I had much better things to do with my time (The Amazing Race, and of course Lost), but there really wasn’t much choice in my decision.

You see, I had a rather unfortunate incident happen sometime Tuesday night with my pants – one that the Lovely Mrs. G. is still giggling about.

It seems that at some point in my extremely hectic Tuesday schedule I accidentally snagged the back of my pants on something – a nail, a door, who knows – and somehow managed to rip a considerably large hole in them…

…and I never knew about it.

Now, I’m praying to God and every other non-offensive deity out there that this didn’t happen when I left the house at 7:20 AM, and I really didn’t spend the next 14 hours walking around with a huge gaping hole in the rear of my jeans. I mean, there are sights that people ought to see – the Grand Canyon or the Statue of Liberty, for example – but my ass ain’t one of them.

Still, there I was at 9:30 PM, after a full day of work, followed by four hours of school, standing in my kitchen when Mrs. G. pointed out the large gap in the seat of my pants where denim had previously been. And then she laughed at my misfortune. Loudly.

I’m still left really wondering: why didn’t anyone say anything? It’s not like I’m a sissy Emo boy who digs showing off my skivvies to the world in purposely ripped-up trousers. If you saw one of your co-workers or classmates walking around with his or her BVDs sticking out of a large hole in the butt of their Levis, wouldn’t you say anything? I mean, I think you’d want to know. And if you worded it correctly, nobody could ever accuse you sexual harassment. “Hey, buddy – nice tattoo” would probably work. Or maybe “Is it a little breezy down there?” C’mon - it’s common courtesy, people!

Anyway, I guess our mothers were always right about making sure you have on clean underwear…just in case. Thanks, Mom.

This wasn’t the first time I had a Bad Pants Experience – I split my pants end to end once when I was 19. I was working at a crappy pizza parlor, and when I bent over to pick up a case of lettuce, rrrrrrrip – that was that. The cheap seam in my cheap black work pants totally disintegrated, and I then had the great joy of working for the rest of the day with two plastic aprons wrapped around my midsection. (It was also one of the busiest days ever there, so I couldn’t leave to go home and change.)

I should’ve just quit on the spot, gone home, changed my pants, then got rip-roaring drunk to forget it ever happened, but I was a good boy who didn’t walk off on jobs (no matter how crappy they were) or go get underage-snockered. Boy, what a dumbass was I.

But from that day on, I did carry an extra pair of pants in the trunk of my car.

Maybe I should pick up that habit up again.