Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Losing an Old Friend

I am wearing my pants at half-mast today. Though it is creating something of a stir in the office, my pants are hanging at mid-thigh for a good reason. Yesterday afternoon, one of my long time companions went to Slacks and Pants Heaven.

I wore one of my oldest pair of pants yesterday, something like Dockers in a flashy olive drab. The cuffs were quite worn and every few months I would get a pair of scissors to snip off the threads that trailed around my feet like spider webs.

The button was also missing. I kept telling myself I would sew it back on, but somehow, I never got around to it. What saved me is that I wear a belt, which mostly covered up the fact that I didn’t have a button, and that I almost always wore aloha shirts with those pants so I could keep the shirt untucked, hiding my secret button shame.

But yesterday, my pants died. I was in the restroom (I’ll spare you the specific details) and reached to pull up the zipper. I couldn’t find it. It turned out that the zipper had come away altogether. A man can live with no button OR no zipper, but not both.

Since I was on my way to a meeting, I rigged a paperclip to hold my pants together and cinched it all with a belt. I was wearing a longish aloha shirt, so that also kept me covered. Then, I gathered my materials, said a silent prayer to the Goddess of Pants, and went to my meeting.

When I got home, I changed, carefully folded my dead pants and handed them to my wife. I gave a short eulogy, reminiscing about all the good times I’d had with Old Greeny Pants (as I had nicknamed them). Then my wife crammed them into the garbage. I am not too proud to say I shed a tear or two.

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11 Comments:

Blogger Sizzle said...

i love that it is a "Goddess" of pants. ;)

3:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I almost spit juice, as I was reading you blog, all over my computer but luckly( for my computer anyway) I used my hand to keep my mouth shut {causing me to get a mouth full of juice in my lungs)...Note to self never again do such a foolish thing as to drink while reading Lefty's blog.

When my mom told me to throw away my favorite pants {because they were really worn, with the 'spider webs' and all} I {being a silly little kid} hid them instead.
So I think my parents might still have a pair of my 'dead pants' in their house somewhere .

4:51 PM  
Blogger Bre said...

That must have been some truly amazing paperclip work!

5:24 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lefty McGyver - how do you rig a paperclip to do the job of a zipper? How big was that paperclip?

The Goddess - she smiled upon you that day!

6:04 PM  
Blogger brandy said...

I'm sorry for your loss.

8:07 PM  
Blogger Sturdy Girl said...

I am impressed with your quick solution to the zipper problem. A very nice survial technique. Sorry that Greeny Pants didn't survive as well...

I'll say a rosary.

4:45 AM  
Blogger SWF42 said...

I'd love to know how your wife rigged the zipper to come off, so she could finally stuff those pants into the trash.

Not that any woman would do such a thing, of course.

(Tell Mrs. Lefty she's my hero.)

6:37 AM  
Blogger Tink said...

Hoop's answer would be to superglue them together so they could never leave his body. I swear, some of his clothes are 15 years old.

12:49 PM  
Blogger Lefty said...

siz--if it's clothes, it must be a goddess, right?

xbox--I'll bet if you go to your parents' house and find those old pants, you could still wear them!

bre and g-dog--I think after I get back from my business trip, I'll draw a diagram of just how the pants were rigged and post it on the blog.

brandy--many thanks

monkey--I'm not exactly sure how a rosary "works"; do you have to sacrifice cats?

swf--Mrs. Lefty (she's finally found her name!) is quite sneaky; she's probably been scheming this for weeks.

tink--hoop's a smart guy; I wonder if I can still rummage those things out of the garbage can.

4:25 PM  
Blogger little miss mel said...

nothing is worse than losing a friend so dear and so close to your boxers. or dare we say briefs?

Rest in peace o olive green pants.

7:25 AM  
Blogger Lefty said...

mel--briefs

9:21 PM  

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