This evening, having finished a large bowl of phoa accompanied by my usual iced coffee, I set off into the cold of night to search for a warm jacket and a new pair of pants. Earlier in the day, around 3:40 in the afternoon, I noticed a disparaging anomaly in the reflection of myself in the men's room mirror. The seat of my trousers was split wide open. A football-shaped hole formed a frame from which to view my boxer-briefed left cheek. The circumstance was quite dire. How long had it been like this? Was it this way in Casper Airport? All through security scanning? Was it this way the whole time in Salt Lake and at SEA-TAC? How many men, women, and children had viewed this view in savory silence, waiting for me to get out of ear-shot so that they could howl in unison at my unwitting ventilation? What the cuss happened?! OH YES...I had slept in the trousers so that I would be ready for a hasty departure in the morning. The pants fit me well, but were apparently ill-equipped for the midnight performance of my unconscious acrobatics. They had split wide and stayed wide the whole day, unnoticed, I am sure, by only myself... The draft! Oh my God, how this explained the draft!
Well, I didn't really find a pair of pants I liked enough to replace the set I had lost so I was heading back to my car when a vehicle pulled out around the corner. From inside, a young lady shouted "Merry Christmas!" at me. I shouted back and we exchanged waves. It was another wonderful and mysterious incident in this engaging and unusual circumstance I call the greatest life I've ever had.
