The day I split my pants in the Las Vegas airport was a memorable day indeed. I think it’s a story worth telling because it’s packed with action and also carries a message.
I guess if my too tight man slacks had split right down the
back seam that day, from top to bottom, that would have been one thing, but they didn’t…that was just the beginning of what I would describe as a near complete structural failure of a pant.
Some could argue that I had no business proudly wearing a peg legged, pin striped, stretch fabric pair of skinny trousers at age 50, but I would argue that I was and am not currently dead yet, so maybe go fuck yourself.
I was posed like a peacock in the Terminal 1 security line at what was then The McCarran International Airport, and had put my carry on Coach satchel down for a moment, a preliminary move that was mostly a subtle bent kneed lean over, followed by a short drop of my bag to the floor, to fish what was probably my drivers license out of my too tiny pocket, and then, in retrieving this same bag, I squatted, not realizing that the pride I had been feeling, thinking “These pants? I’m actually pulling this look off at my age,” had in fact crossed over into Hubris …what I had learned in college was not your average pride, but pride of the fatal variety, that which leads to your undoing, and that’s when I squatted and that’s when I blew my back doors wide open.
It was the load limit, I had exceeded it. I pushed those pants into the red zone and they failed, utterly. Something I’m sure they discovered in the Fabric Lab, but I was not privy to this data on that day. I didn’t just split my pants, these pants detonated. They just blew up.
I first heard a high-pitched giving way of stitchery, like (ripping sound) and then to my confusion, saw a big plank of blue cotton-blend just sort of whip snap off to my right side Shuh-Ffffffwappp! and the woman behind me gasped an “Oh, my…” and then, what amounted to a draft was now suddenly gusting around and through my legs, legs that just a moment earlier had been modestly sheathed in cloth, as dictated by polite society.
The breeze was also blowing across my bottom and yes thankfully, I was wearing a brand-new pair of black boxer briefs that were now on full display to the gasping woman behind me, and probably at least 4 additional gasping people directly behind her. Something clearly catastrophic had taken place back there, that much I knew, and so I ducked under the stanchion to my left, (What did it matter now how deeply I lunged?) and sort of crab danced my way to a mercifully nearby restroom, as long trailing strips of what used to be my drawers now fluttered around behind me, looking like some sort of shipwreck survivor who had been dragged over a reef before making it to shore.
By some act of God, I had packed a pair of jeans in my carry on, and before I knew it, I was back in the britches wearing business. My flight was boarding soon, so in my haste, I just stashed my former pants in my bag, because I didn’t have the time to examine the blast zone. Needless to say, I did not ask for my place back in line.
I shuddered to think what would have happened had I not packed those blue jeans. I first would have had to navigate security, probably shirtless, using my top as a temporary bottom tied around my waist, and this being Sin City TSA, I’m sure they would have been largely unfazed by this. Then, I would have to dart from store to store in the terminal, shame spiraling and panicked to find anything remotely resembling a pair of pants a grown man might wear. I would have jumped at Vegas themed golf slacks with hearts, diamonds, aces and clubs on them or even some Rat Pack pajama bottoms would have done the job. Why, in my desperation, I would have settled for a Juicy Couture pair of track suit tramp stamp pink sweats …experiencing what that brand might describe as “humiliation totale.”
After I got home, I pulled what was left of my trousers out of my carry on and, akin to the astronauts of Apollo 13 after jettisoning the crippled Service Module, I could finally study the damage caused by the explosion. It was staggering. The blowout was vertical and horizontal all at once, I didn’t even fully understand what I was looking at, and short of a high speed super slow-motion replay, I probably never would.
No offense to the designers and builders of this particular pair of pants, of which brand I will take to my grave, I simply did what these slacks were never designed to do. Someone younger and toting around a smaller body fat percentage might have successfully executed a full squat in line at a major airport terminal with nary a second thought, but I, at age 50, did not and I learned that lesson the hard way, subjecting a line of complete strangers to a sudden and violent “Voila! Mon derriere!”
That being said, it doesn’t mean that you don’t wear a pair of pants like I did at that age, it just means educate yourself as to what they will and will not tolerate when they’re brought to, as they say, failure.
At 61 now, I admit, I still favor a skinny stretchy man slack now and again, but with the passing of years, I have learned that I am playing a dangerous, young man’s game, and while I walk the razor’s edge, I have learned to do so with more grace and economy…et plus de squats.
Not dead yet, I remain,
Stephen.
Splitsville