Pants Optional

I’ve already outed myself as a shameless lover of the radio. Forgive me if I need to briefly mention another excellent radio program as a segway into my new installment of “Silly Stuff That Happens to Sarah”. Or perhaps “Stupid Sarah Stunts”?

There are these hilarious Australian DJs called Hamish & Andy. One day I will likely write a confession of my Hamish & Andy fantasies. For now all I will say is that they are knee-slappingly awesome, and that they celebrate “Pants Off Friday”. Yes, that’s right, on Fridays they wear no pants. (For any British readers, we’re talking trousers here, not underwear.)

In keeping with their timeless tradition, as it’s Friday I would like to share two stories involving my own pants.

The first happened 11 years ago.

I was 19, and driving across Canada in an ’81 Honda Civic station wagon. Usually I was sleeping in said car. No, this was not an intentional effort to drive my mother crazy with worry – although that was a pleasant side effect. She finally broke down and begged – BEGGED – me to get a motel for just one night. Please? I’ll pay?

Sold!

I roll into Sault Ste. Marie around 11pm and pull into the first motel I see. They have one room left, and don’t accept debit. So I walk half a block to an ATM, retrieve my cash, and walk back. I see a car pulling into the motel and a couple getting out. They’ll get the last room! NNNOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

I start to run, and at this exact moment I learn how un-nutritious my road trip diet of instant coffee and bread burnt over the flames of my little propane burner has been. My pants decide to make a break for it. I’m free!!! They don’t slide down my hips so much as leap off them, diving for the ground. I trip, I stumble (I don’t fall, by some miracle), I yank them back up, and do a sort of gimpy two-step back to the motel, one hand holding the waistband so tight and high I give myself a painful wedgie.

A note on these pants. I think around grade 10 my best friend and I started hand-sewing squares of cloth over any rip or thin spot on our jeans. We thought these patches were super sweet. So these jeans – which should have been thrown out a good five years earlier – were now 5% denim and 95% godawful multi-coloured swatches. On my limpy dash to the motel I probably looked like a Rastafarian version of Igor.

Flash forward 11 years, to yesterday. I’ve been going all healthy lately. You know, not drinking (much), going to the gym, eating those things…you know…they grow with sun….vegetables! I guess my efforts have paid off, because as I’m sprinting for the bus this old, familiar feeling comes over me. Total deja-vue. What the…oh, ya! I remember! It feels like my jeans are falling down! Let me check…yep, confirmed, they are definitely falling down!

I think most women can agree that this is a very confusing place to be in. On one hand you’re all crap! And how embarassing!

And on the other hand you’re all YES! YESYESYESYESYES! SWEET! And you want to do a happy dance, which will only make them fall down again. But you don’t care!

Am I right?

Photo Credits

No Pants Dutchman © Wikicommons. Some rights reserved.

Mannequin with Jeans © Wikicommons. Some rights reserved.

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