Tale of the short navy blue slacks

Wednesday morning, I clipped the sales tags off my new navy blue slacks. I slipped them on, put on my shoes and looked at myself in the floor length mirror.

"Why am I seeing my ankles?" I gasped.

I grabbed the tags and there in very small print was the word, "Petite," which translates into, "Short."

Well, swell. I can't take them back because I took the tags off. I had planned my red, white and blue outfit because it was Veterans Day. So, I swallowed my pride and out the door I went in my high-tide pants, hoping no one would notice.

I covered my first Veterans Day program. From there I went to the Eldred Township Veterans Day Ceremony. Afterward, I was chatting with my sister and another guest. I stepped back to make room for the gentlemen who were taking chairs back inside. I encountered raised soft ground which made me stumble which made me lose my balance which sent me flailing. I tried to catch myself. My sister reached out to grab a hold but gravity took over and I felt myself falling, right on top of a small low bush, for which I will be forever grateful. Surely it cushioned what could have been a very painful landing.

Wanna know the first thing I saw?

My legs sticking straight up in the air, like a turtle on her back, with my short pants showing off skin way beyond my ankles. As I'm laying there, this is what I thought: "If I had on Average length pants, no one would have seen this much of my legs."

And then the giggles hit. All I could do was lay there and laugh at how ridiculous I must look.

My sister started giggling too.

My mom stood there laughing and said, "Why don't we have a movie camera around when we need it?"

We were laughing too hard to help me up, so I rolled off the bush. Getting up on my knees I felt the cold wet earth seep through the material of my new navy blue slacks.

Oh swell. Not only were my pants short, now they were dirty and I had one more Veterans Day event to cover at PV High School.

I don't know the name of that bush I fell on, but it left a lasting impression. My whole right leg and backside felt like I had landed on a cactus and I felt all prickly.

On my way to Brodheadsville, I heard a very loud "Thunk!"

It continued to thunk, thunk, thunk as I drove on.

"Oh crap! A flat tire!"

Sure enough, flatter than flat.

But, I didn't panic. I whipped out my cell phone and called my Triple H. No, not AAA. HHH-Handsome Handy Harry. I knew he was working in the vicinity and would come to my aid.

My knight in shining armor arrived and went straight to work.

Now ladies, how many of you have changed a flat tire on your own? If you have, I bow down before you and kiss the ground you walk on because I'm telling you, there's no way in Spain I could have done it.

I watched as Harry unearthed the little doughnut they call a spare tire. I couldn't have even unscrewed it to get it out seeing how hared he grunted until he did. Then he took the thingee the Chevrolet company call a jack. We had to use the manual to figure it out.

As I watched him struggle to get the jack under the car, I was gritting my teeth, squeezing my buttocks and doing a little jig in what I have come to know as my "Potty Dance."

You see, I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome which rears its ugly head at the most inopportune times. It is often worsened by emotional stress.

Hmmm. Emotional stress. Let's see, short pants, falling in public, flat tire, late for an assignment.

Naahh, no emotional stress here.

"Harrrryyyy, I have to take the truck and go home."

After 38 years of marriage, my Triple H looked up at me from his position on his back trying to get the jack to work and recognized the symptoms and said in resignation, "The keys are in the truck."

I stared at the inside of my husband's work truck. As a mason, let's just say it's hard to tell that the seat is black. The gritty, grimy dusty seat was what I was going to have to sit on in my new navy blue slacks. I rolled my eyes and hoisted myself up and raced for home, which was gratefully only 1 1/2 miles away. Thank heavens I did not encounter the State Police. I wondered if anyone ever got a ticket while trying to explain Irritable Bowel Snydrome.

I thought my Triple H would have my doughnut on by the time I returned.

Wrong.

He was standing there looking at the useless jack that the Chevrolet company thinks a woman should be able to manage and as soon as I got out of the truck, he was in it.

"I'm going home for the floor jack."

Well, long story short, an hour and 15 minutes later, I was finally on my way to the high school, just in time for the closing ceremony which I didn't even know they were having but thought that God really does work in mysterious ways.

When I got home, I looked at my short, grass and mud stained, dusty rear-end new navy blue slacks and decided I would never wear them again. I will wash them and put them in the bag for the used clothes bin and hope somewhere some short chubby lady will have better luck with them than I did.