MORTIFYING MOMENT OF THE DAY: Crotch Rip Edition

Traveling Pants Shall Travel No More

Over the past week, two pairs of my shorts and my favorite pair of cargo pants have developed large, menacing holes in their pockets. I don’t know exactly what brought it about (heavy keys, no doubt), but yesterday afternoon, I resolved to take my ailing garb to a tailor to get this small but inconvenient problem mended, quite literally. The plan was to go into effect yesterday, but thank goodness I waited because I would have full-on wasted my money — at least as far as my cargo pants were concerned.

Yes, last night, my favorite pair of Old Navy cargo pants came to a sudden and humiliating demise. I was at Jash’s house, taking in a viewing of Big Brother and I Survived a Japanese Game Show (didn’t finish the finale, no spoilers please!). The latter show was a lengthy two hours long, and as the clock struck 11:08 PM (we had started it at around 10:20 PM, after a DVR’d viewing of Big Bros), I actually became sleepy. We decided to table the rest of the episode until tomorrow, and on that note, I put on my sneakers to leave. It was a fairly routine sort of thing: kneel down on one knee, tie the shoe on the other. And it started off fine. Just fine! But when I did the switcheroo — going from kneeling on my right knee to my left knee — that’s when I heard the noise that every self-respecting pant-wearer fears.
RRRRIIIIPPPP!!
It was so fast, so intense! I looked down and there in my crotch was a gigantic rip. WTF?? It’s a good thing I wasn’t flying commando (not that I ever do). This thing was like a cataclysmic tearing of the fabric. Kind of the equivalent of one of those Rhode Island-sized ice shelves falling off Antarctica. As you can imagine, Jash let out a peel of laughter. That was fine. I laughed too. But now I had to walk all the way to my car with my junk nearly exposed. This was not good. Luckily, since it was late at night, I didn’t really encounter anyone on the street, but that still didn’t stop me from slightly blushing when I sat down in my car and my pants let out a smaller but equally jarring second rip. Great. The hole was getting bigger. I was starting to feel like by the time I got home, I’d have full-on stripper pants. The entire time, I just crossed my fingers that I’d have no one with me in my building’s elevator. That would have been awkward.
Sadly, this was not the first time such a sartorial disaster had befallen me. Back in 2004 or so, such a disaster actually happened to me at work. I bent over to pick up a pen from the floor, and my (loose-fitting, I should note) jeans completely ripped in the ass. And now, this wasn’t one of those little holes. A whole seam tore from the top of my right butt cheek down to the back of my knee. Clearly something was wrong with the fabric. Amusingly, just a few week prior to this unfortunate event, my friend noted that the jeans, Carharts, were the sturdiest of them all. “These will last a long time,” he had said. Yeah, whatever. I call bullshit on that.
Anyway, I couldn’t just spend the rest of my workday with my ass exposed, and conveniently, this incident happened just a few minutes before lunchtime; so I decided to go home and change. Of course, that didn’t mean I was off the hook in the humiliation department. Back then, I was working at a production company, which meant that in order for me to get to my car, I had to walk allll the way across a studio lot, significantly upping the chances of public humiliation. It just so happened that the movie Flightplan was being filmed at that time, and I remember hastily walking by the soundstage and seeing Jodie Foster just standing there talking to someone. I tried not to look at her, but I’m fairly sure she and her friend took note of my ASS (again, sheathed in underwear). Sometimes, however, being in the presence of a celebrity will change things. Rather than cower in humiliation, I decided to raise my head high and saunter by as if jeans with giant holes in the ass was the new style. That’s right, Jodie. All the cool kids are doing it. Nevertheless, I rocked my tattered pants and spent the rest of my walk across the lot acting as if I was somehow the shit. Of course, the instant I got into the privacy of my car, I exhales a huge sigh of relief and gunned it home.
A rip in the back, however, is much better than a rip in the front. A rip in the front almost seems perverted. Gross. Inappropriate. So it was with great trepidation last night that I waited by the elevator, hoping the doors would open and I’d be alone. Finally, the moment of judgment arrived, and in a much appreciated turn of events, the privacy I so wished for was granted to me. There was no one in the elevator, and I was able retreat to my apartment unseen.
So the point of the story is that it’s good I didn’t waste any money repairing the pocket in these pants because I would have had to have thrown out the damn things anyway. I guess it’s time to buy a new pair. How tragic. They really were my favorite.
Now, here are some photos of the hole:

Behold the rip.

As you can see, it’s quite immense.

Seriously, look at that exposure.

A close-up view. We’re talking several inches of humiliation.

Detail.