Dear Teeny-Bopper Girl Magazine...

...today I had the most embarassing day of my life.

I know most of your readers will breathe a sigh of relief when I tell you that it has nothing to do with being caught at the school dance in white pants without a tampon. It all started off with a simple problem: no clean underwear. Perhaps I would have made another decision if it hadn't been so early in the morning. If only...but it's too late for that now. I had two viable alternatives: wear dirty underwear or no underwear at all. I opted to go commando.

Normally that wouldn't have been a big deal. I spend all day sitting down at my computer, so it's not like anyone would ever know. Today, however, the gods would not look kindly on my attempts to buck my fate. But before I go any further, let me weave another thread into this story. I have been losing weight recently. It's not much; I won't be on any posters, spam, or pop-under ads anytime soon selling miracle cures for obesity. I have, however, noticed that my pants have begun to sag more than they used to. I hadn't done anything about it, but I had resolved to add a notch to my belt in the near future in an attempt at forcing them to sit more normally on my waist. Several hours and one pair of pants later, I see that I really should have done that much, much sooner.

By now some of you have probably guessed what happened, but here goes: I had just gotten off the train on my way home and had started to walk down the walkway to where my car was parked when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that my shoelace was untied. After a quick look behind me to make sure there wasn't anyone following close behind, I squatted down to tie my shoe. With a sickening rip the crotch of my khakis gave out. The first thought that went through my head was to push my legs together to hide the rip. Unfortunately when I looked down to survey the extent of the damage, what I thought was a tear was a gaping hole in my pants, and staring back at me like a big hairy fleshy eyeball was my right nut. My pants had ripped all the way up the seam next to the zipper almost completely up to the waistband. Clearly putting my legs together wasn't going to be enough. With a sharp intake of breath I tried to squat down in order to reduce my exposure, but I only succeeded in making the gash in the fabric flap open like one of those old rubber coin purses. I made it the rest of the way back by holding my backpack over my groin as nonchalantly as I could, trying for all the world not to give any indication that my gonads were playing some kind of perverted peekaboo. No one gave any indication that they saw, but I sure as hell wasn't going to look at them and risk making eye contact. I oozed over to my car as surreptitiously as was possible and sped off before anyone could say anything.

I guess I can only hope that this builds character...