No butts about it

Ronni Bennett's post about fashion this morning reminded me of a story I'd almost forgotten to tell you. It happened on the first day of my recent vacation.

The plan was for my sister to call me when she left her home in Texas, which she did. I knew I'd have three hours from then to load all my ready-for-packing clothing into luggage, bathe, put on makeup, and get dressed. I wanted to dress at the last minute so my traveling clothes would be fresh.

The problem was that my sister made really good time and arrived half an hour early. I still wasn't dressed. My daughters were here to see us off, so they visited with their aunt while I hurried around in my bathrobe to finish up. I threw on my clothes as fast as I could, then we were ready to hit the road.

I had chosen to travel in a chocolate brown T-shirt, brown sandals, and a pair of light-khaki pants. I'd picked that outfit specifically because of the pants. They were lightweight, didn't wrinkle much, had an elastic waist, and were about one size too large for me--not so large that they were ugly-baggy, but plenty roomy.

As the day progressed, I was comfortable and pleased with my choice. We stopped a few times that first day, for gasoline, restrooms, and cold drinks. At one of those stops I attempted to put change in my pocket, only to realize there were no pockets. "Hm," I thought to myself, "I could have sworn these pants had pockets." No big deal, right? I didn't give it another thought.

We traveled through three states that first day: Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Just after dark we stopped for the night at a hotel in Montgomery, Alabama. It was late and we were hungry, so we dropped off our luggage in our hotel room, took turns in the bathroom, then picked up our purses to head out for dinner.

My hand was on the doorknob when my sister yelled, "Stop!" I turned around to see what was the matter and saw her laughing and pointing at me. "Your pants," she giggled. "The fly is in the back." Indeed it was. So were the pockets. I had displayed myself across three states with my pants on backwards.

I would have been embarrassed, but I knew I'd never see any of those people again in my lifetime, so I just turned the pants around and went about my business. In fact, the more I thought about it, the funnier it got. But then I thought about it some more and the humor began to wear off a little.

I wore my pants backwards--through three states--and couldn't tell the difference. What does that say about the shape of my recently slimmed-down butt?