I have recently found my way into quite the predicament, which although shouldn’t be all that out of the ordinary for you – the reader – as without such predicaments, there would be little more to read here than notes about what I ate for lunch and how close I didn’t come to winning the state lottery the day before…not exactly the type of witty banter that makes up a quality humor column, if you ask me! Nope, instead what you’re really looking for is more along the lines of a crazy, wacky, never-before entertained, not-even-by-the-WB kind of tale to occupy ten or fifteen minutes throughout the course of your work week, and that’s exactly the kind of tale that I sought to bring you today…

…well, sort of…

You see, today’s adventure takes place in one of our local clothing stores – which one doesn’t really matter, as I’m a guy and will pretty much slap down any amount of money at any given store, if only to be able to move the trip along to someplace else that isn’t a clothing store, but regardless, this was actually somewhat of an enjoyable trip because I was buying new pants.

Now before you give me that look, allow me to elaborate by explaining that I’ve been working out and dieting like a madman for approximately two months since the last breakdown, so this is actually quite the bigger deal than you might’ve originally anticipated. Over the past two years, similar attempts to lose weight have one way or another failed miserably, thus resulting in similar trips to the clothing store, sadly, to purchase larger pants to replace the ones that I could no longer fit into without risking seam breakage for the remainder of the day. Those of you who have successfully both lost the weight and managed to keep it off can truly understand just how great an accomplishment this is, so in an effort to pick up the pace here just a little, can you please turn to the person beside you who’s still scratching their head and explain it to them?

Thanks in advance…

So I’m at the store searching for pants and, believe it or not, I indeed was able to find a couple of pairs that seemed to suit me just fine! They were cargo pants because, well – I’m not that skinny yet, but I happen to like cargo pants just the same and after a quick bout in the fitting room to ensure that my slightly smaller body than before would take to them nicely, I happily made the purchase and was on my way to bigger and better non-clothing stores that the mall had to offer. Hey, you’ve got to reward yourself every now and again, right?!

Fast-forward two days later when morning comes and I find myself donning said new pants to wear to work for all to enjoy. And no, it certainly wasn’t an issue of them not fitting, as I was most definitely sure to check, double-check, and then check again at the store to ensure that I’d chosen a pair that would suit my needs in the frightening event that a few of those discarded pounds just might happen to mosey on back in my direction. Everything was loose and airy, just as I had planned, and it wasn’t until I had walked from my door to the car that I first experienced the true issue at hand – I couldn’t find my keys.

And mind you, being that the intent of my walking venture out to the car was primarily so that I could get into it and drive to work, this was a bigger predicament than I had predicted! I checked around – these aren’t that deep of pockets, so it didn’t take me long to verify that they weren’t there, but things took a turn for the worse when I reached into the other pocket for my cell phone and realized that … it wasn’t there, either! Wondering if I’d somehow inadvertently wandered my way into the Twilight Zone or something, I took a step back to examine the situation as a whole…

No keys
No cell phone
No way that I’m walking thirteen miles to work!

Thinking back, I pondered the idea of possibly leaving them in the door or something, or at worst leaving everything on the kitchen table, and knowing that I can’t physically lock myself out of the apartment without being on the outside with my keys in hand, I decided to go back and investigate further back home. Nonetheless, two steps later, I stopped dead in my tracks. I heard that distinct jingling that we all know keys to make, and I knew that they were close!

Checking my front pockets once again, I noticed something that had somehow been overlooked before – I could now feel my keys, but I just couldn’t physically get to them, almost as if they’d been magically consumed by the pants or something. While this is something that I like to think that I’d have both caught on to and eventually turned down, not wanting to pay the premium for such an enchanted garment, I began to contemplate the idea of possibly having – gasp – more than one set of pockets in a single pair of pants, and after a quick run along the seams of the first pocket, I was finally able to unearth a second pocket and recover my keys, just in time to make it to work before all of the chocolate donuts were gone…

Looking back on the situation, it may sound obvious to some – especially in the instance of cargo pants – but if you were able to see firsthand just how useless having two pockets right on top of each other actually is, you’d likely understand my situation a little better! I kind of feel like Jack, having just bought a sack of magic beans without being properly informed, albeit my story didn’t involve being chased by a giant who lived in the sky and all. Nonetheless, I hope that my own tale might serve as a warning to the rest of you who might find yourselves in a similar predicament sometime in the future, purchasing pants without taking into account more than just what the waistband has to offer.

An extra five minutes to thoroughly check for pockets large and small could very well save you the same embarrassment that I’ve experienced with these pants, and if telling my story here today might help to prevent just one other person from such a horrible fate, then it is my honor, not only as a writer, but as a fellow human being. My name is Scott Sevener and these are my stories…