I have shared the most embarrassing moment of my life only with my husband and children and their spouses so far, in one of my daily emails to them, and only after I’ve read Paul Reiser piece called A Funny Thing Happened… in an issue of AARP The Magazine eleven years ago.
My most embarrassing moment happened a long time ago while I was in college. I went down to the cafeteria of my dorm for breakfast. While I was carrying my food tray to a table, something slid down my leg and fell out of my pants onto the floor. I was horrified to see that it was a pair of my underpants. I was too embarrased to pick it up. I just walked away from the scene, wondering if anyone had seen what happened, and hoping fiercely no one had seen where the panties came from. I didn’t tell anyone about the incident, not my roommate, not any of my close friends, and not any of my family members. I was dying of embarrassment.
Later when I happened to read A Funny Thing Happened…, I felt better about what happened in the dormitory in college many years ago. Paul Reiser, while in line at airport security, felt a soft clump around his ankle and realized that his “yesterday’s underwear was still squooshed up inside today’s pants.” While he was trying to subtly remove his underwear by pretending to tie his shoes, someone behind him recognized him as an actor and started a conversation. He didn’t have time to stash away the underwear when it was his turn to go up to the security guy. He was unlucky that he wasn’t famous enough for the security guy to recognize him. He looked suspicious as he tried to stuff his underwear back into his pants. He was escorted to the side and patted down. He was asked to remove the soft bulge around his ankle and answer the question of what he was holding in full view of everyone.
There’s another funny thing. I wanted to read the Paul Reiser piece again. The problem was I did not remember his name or the magazine I read it from or the title of the piece. So I googled something like “Underwear stuck in pants” but the article didn’t come up. So I added “at airports” to the end of the phrase and the article still didn’t come up. However, I saw tons of the same stories of underwear finding their way out of trousers. Up until then, I had no idea it was a common occurrence, or common enough that a Google search would have no trouble finding stories to feed me. I was floored.
So you probably can use the search engines for anything imaginable and perhaps you’ll find you’re not alone with your problem after all.
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