There is a saying where I come from, if you have forgotten to zip up your trousers you say to someone "you have egg on your chin". It is a slightly more discrete way of saying that your flies are undone, we do try to be diplomatic.
Occasionally life throws up the odd embarrassing challenge and this happened to me one morning just after I had arrived at work. It was around 7am and there were only a few people in at that time. As is my want, I chose to empty my bladder, it was on completion of this that the problem arose. I must add quickly that this was not a re-run of There's Something About Mary. There were no bloody moments or TV cameras with appearances on national TV. No, as I drew my zip up it failed, leaving me with a bit of a snag, although not literally a snag, thank God. There was no chance of repair or even being partially closed, I was swaying in the wind so to speak. The saving grace was that I prefer close fitting underwear, in fact I wear underwear, which is always a bonus! The cargo was therefore reasonably safe and not in danger of popping out to say hi.
Now luckily enough, where I work we have a clothing store which is usually stocked with a wide range of uniform clothing, including black trousers. I duly and rather cautiously crossed the grass to the other building that housed the clothing store and gabbed the storeman. I had to wait until they were open, which was not too long. It is rather handy having such a facility at the workplace. Anyway, things started to go downhill, basically they did not have my size. I had a choice between supermodel thin, which would have lasted about 30 seconds or mega huge, which would have made me look like Coco the clown, if only he had a red nose to give me as well.
Helpfully he said that he could order some in, it would take a couple of weeks. Now, I appreciate the timescales but that kind of doesn't work for me. I told him that I had a spare set in the house only 2 1/2 hours away. His next line took me aback, he said the tailor next door could probably fix the zip in a couple of days... I decided that given the choice between the extra ventilation and having no trousers at all would prove too much of a distraction for my team. I declined the offer but then thought that I may be able to get a safety pin, which I did.
Now my job is very serious, I deal with quite important and life changing issues everyday and although I am quite laid back there is a degree of credibility and dignity required. I tackled it the only way I could, each time I had a face to face chat I just came out with it, that is I stated clearly that my dignity was slightly compromised. Naturally the first thing that people do when you say this is they look at your crotch... Well now that the ice was broken we could get on with the business at hand. I don't think I would get away with it if it was the other way around, the polite thing is to pretend to ignore it.
I do a lot of face to face work and I get around the organisation quite a bit, it is the best way of keeping abreast of things and doing business. Sometimes I would forget to point out my clothing defect. It is quite obvious when someone has noticed but does not quite feel they are able to mention it. You can play at this stage, you know, doing a Sharon Stone or sitting like a typical male with legs spread as wide as possible. I am a bit too considerate to torture people like this, so more often than not I confirmed their suspicion and made sure they were not traumatized.
Thinking about it now, it reminds me of the times at school when a hole would open up right under the crotch, where the seam would just split. As we used to sit cross legged a lot as kids this could be quite embarrassing too. Now it tends to be laces snapping at the most inconvenient time, although not so much of a compromising situation.
As most people within the organisation were aware of my clothing deficiency I felt it necessary to instruct one of my team to raise it as a point at the Executive meeting in my absence the following day.
And that was how it began with the zip!
Thursday, 20 February 2014
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
No, Really, It started With My Zip
Every morning when I go to work my alarm goes off at 05.15, this is a bid to avoid the heavy rush hour traffic. I usually get to work around 07.00 and that is a clear 1 1/2 hours before I am supposed to start. This has benefits, primarily it means I can have my breakfast and read my kindle in relative peace before the rest of the team turn up. Sometimes, more often than not I will do some work, although usually I will do some personal development such as learning Dutch or reading. It is a peaceful start to the day, which can be shattered by the odd crisis and someone being in early. Occasionally, if I am really tired, I will have a half hour nap, which is ok whilst it is dark in Winter but in Summer it is a bit of a non-starter as my office has massive windows.
Anyway, when the Marimba alarm sounds, it is time to lean over, hug and kiss the wife and then slip out of bed. As I rise, my body begins to stabilise as gyro control is initiated. Every now and again I have a wobble, depending upon whether I had a decent nights sleep or not. Now I must add that the alarm is as loud as a fire alarm and my hearing being low I make sure it stays loud. An must love this. Sometimes, to my annoyance, I wake up before the alarm goes off, in some cases this is just minutes before, a wasted opportunity to sleep!
Being a former watchkeeper, I value both being silent and keeping the lights out. I am quite considerate in this respect, I go to the sock and underwear drawer and remove a set, whilst my night vision is still good. After that I fold back the rug and close the bedroom door to prevent the flood of light waking An up. At this point I do the usual evolutions; toilet, weigh myself, shave, brush the teeth and shower. My night vision is now shot through and I am quite awake by now.
I pre-iron my shirts on a Sunday and thus it is quick and easy to get dressed and grab my bag, which is normally pre-packed. Today I changed my routine, forgot my trainers and missed out on PT, shame...
Recently, due to the total ban on shoes being upstairs, my routine had to change. Usually I would come back upstairs before departing to give An a hug and a kiss. Now I do this before heading downstairs. A couple of weeks ago I had finished up and switched the lights off in readiness to open the bedroom door, my night vision having gone, I then proceeded to enter the bedroom and fumble my way down An's side of the bed. She was watching me, as her night vision was still well established. She continued to watch as I overshot my target and gently and delicately kissed the headboard. She was wondering what the hell I was doing and I was lucky not to hit my head on the wall. Needless to say I re-orientated and managed to locate the target some 40 cms further back from my initial estimate!
The next most important evolution is to feed the cat, who has been sitting patiently on the other side of the kitchen door, waiting for me to come downstairs. He clearly hears me getting ready and is well established in his routine. Sometimes he is outside and he waits for me to unlock the door, heaven forbid he should use the cat flap! As I put the food in his bowl he makes sure that my uniform trousers have a good few cat hairs to mark the fact that I belong to him. The last thing I do is grab my yogurt, keys, wallet and pass and then head out of the door.
As I leave it is like doing pre-flight checks in the car, depending upon the weather the heating and demisting kicks in and I establish the music for the journey and initiate the navigation. Usually this is a rolling task as I am departing the street.
I promise the next one will start with the zip! You know what it is like when you get going...
Anyway, when the Marimba alarm sounds, it is time to lean over, hug and kiss the wife and then slip out of bed. As I rise, my body begins to stabilise as gyro control is initiated. Every now and again I have a wobble, depending upon whether I had a decent nights sleep or not. Now I must add that the alarm is as loud as a fire alarm and my hearing being low I make sure it stays loud. An must love this. Sometimes, to my annoyance, I wake up before the alarm goes off, in some cases this is just minutes before, a wasted opportunity to sleep!
Being a former watchkeeper, I value both being silent and keeping the lights out. I am quite considerate in this respect, I go to the sock and underwear drawer and remove a set, whilst my night vision is still good. After that I fold back the rug and close the bedroom door to prevent the flood of light waking An up. At this point I do the usual evolutions; toilet, weigh myself, shave, brush the teeth and shower. My night vision is now shot through and I am quite awake by now.
I pre-iron my shirts on a Sunday and thus it is quick and easy to get dressed and grab my bag, which is normally pre-packed. Today I changed my routine, forgot my trainers and missed out on PT, shame...
Recently, due to the total ban on shoes being upstairs, my routine had to change. Usually I would come back upstairs before departing to give An a hug and a kiss. Now I do this before heading downstairs. A couple of weeks ago I had finished up and switched the lights off in readiness to open the bedroom door, my night vision having gone, I then proceeded to enter the bedroom and fumble my way down An's side of the bed. She was watching me, as her night vision was still well established. She continued to watch as I overshot my target and gently and delicately kissed the headboard. She was wondering what the hell I was doing and I was lucky not to hit my head on the wall. Needless to say I re-orientated and managed to locate the target some 40 cms further back from my initial estimate!
The next most important evolution is to feed the cat, who has been sitting patiently on the other side of the kitchen door, waiting for me to come downstairs. He clearly hears me getting ready and is well established in his routine. Sometimes he is outside and he waits for me to unlock the door, heaven forbid he should use the cat flap! As I put the food in his bowl he makes sure that my uniform trousers have a good few cat hairs to mark the fact that I belong to him. The last thing I do is grab my yogurt, keys, wallet and pass and then head out of the door.
As I leave it is like doing pre-flight checks in the car, depending upon the weather the heating and demisting kicks in and I establish the music for the journey and initiate the navigation. Usually this is a rolling task as I am departing the street.
I promise the next one will start with the zip! You know what it is like when you get going...
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
It Started With My Zip
Sometimes I can barely remember what I did last week and the weekend of the 2/3Feb was one of those. I read recently that the brain requires a certain amount of sleep each night in order to transfer memories from the short to the long term store, otherwise they are lost. I am not sure how true that is but I can vouch for being more forgetful than most when failing to get a good nights sleep. My regime during the week is to go Monday to Thursday departing from home at around 05:45 and getting back at 19.00, although these last few weeks work has been even more demanding than usual. I normally work from home on Friday but not recently, the result is a general lack of sleep which cannot be good.
On the 31 Jan my wife and I decided that I would drop by Ikea and pick up a body form mattress topper, this is not a great description as it sounds like a sanitary towel for a 60 foot menstruating woman... Anyway, whilst there I was meant to pick up a couple of toilet brushes and a couple of winter duvets. You would not believe the difference it makes but of course it would not be a straightforward trip. Needless to say we guessed the size of our bed and duvet covers and therein lay the first problem.
As I was going to use the Ikea near Sterrebeek I was keen to get in and out before the inevitable rush hour traffic set in and the place was choking with mad people trying to get home. I naturally got straight in and decided to pretend I was a salmon and go up river against the flow of the traffic. Like most, I would imagine, I don't like the way they get you to follow the set route and never have a straight path through all the displays. I mean I just needed an express route, I did not want to joust with pushchairs or follow wandering nomads as they walked in their zombie like state looking for inspiration, I was a man with a mission and I had done my research too (on the UK site, which would prove to be a slight inconvenience).
I found the bedding department and after waiting for another customer to discuss the physics of mattresses with the assistant and shift, I then quickly checked the mattress toppers out and discovered and noted the required details for our 200 x 160 product. I then shifted target to the duvets.
Now we have had somewhat thin and feeble duvets for some time now and have never really taken the opportunity to change them, but after reminiscing about the cuddly and warm feeling of previous ownership, I managed to persuade An of the requirement to experience a more comfortable duvet. Now the UK have a TOG rating, which I believe runs from about 5 to 16 or so, the higher it is the heavier and warmer the duvet. I was kind of hoping that this was an international standard but no, the system in Belgium (and it may not be purely Belgian) was a number between 1 and 6, again the bigger the number the heavier. I think this is a case of kilometres and miles but I am not sure. SO I selected a nice heavy duvet and guessed that the size would be ok, we have two single duvet and in fact there was only 1 size so no real problem there.
Having done my research I then started zombie dodging my way to the warehouse, gabbing a couple of toilet brushes on the way (not as weapons you understand). I found the mattress and decided to go through the self-scan, quick eh? No, not when you have people with the technological dexterity of a blind elephant who has a leg in a caste. It seemed to take such a painfully long time for them to work out how to operate the equipment and scan their goods, there was an older couple, a heard of 25 somethings and someone who just couldn't care less. I took maybe a minute if that to scan, pay and move.
I already knew that the mattress topper would not fit in the boot of my rather nice car, the one I had decided was not going to be used to transport cargo, the one I had deliberately chosen not to have folding rear seats. Anyway, I had to get the mattress across the back seats of the car and, funny old thing, it was too big. To be honest it took just a small adjustment of moving the passenger seat forward and hey presto I only had to magic it in between the parked cars. Once I had squeezed my giant tampon into the car I got underway. I would be just the right person if I encountered a fuel spill or a small flood. I actually made pretty good time and was home about half an hour later.
As soon as I was home I unloaded the car, without being smacked in the face by the large tampon, it was spring loaded in the car. I decided that it would be best to measure the bed and duvet covers before risking unwrapping the stuff, just as well. This was when I discovered that the bed was in fact 200 x 140, I could have gone for the sanitary towel for the slightly smaller menstruating woman and avoided being smacked in the face as I got it out of the car. Cue another trip to Ikea the following day. The duvets were not a problem and lets face it you can't go wrong with toilet brushes...
On the Sat we hit Ikea before the bulk of the zombies turned up and returned the extra large tampon and were given instructions on where to find the slightly smaller (and cheaper one). We were given a plastic 'gift card' as they don't do refunds. Inconvenient but not a problem. We went to the aisle as directed and, WITHOUT CHECKING, picked the product off the shelf. We did check the size and take it from the location as described. We whipped it though checkout and noted that the price was considerably lower, we realised the error and then had to go back to returns, where they issued us with yet another plastic card. They could not just simply credit the existing one, too easy. To add insult to injury they then said WE should check before going through. The correct product was in a completely different location so it was an easy mistake for THEM to make!
Anyway we now have a very warm and comfortable bed, it was not bad to start with but now it is positively luxury.
The bit about the zip comes later, that was the start of a hectic week at work and the mini-dramas that unfolded, but more of that next time.
On the 31 Jan my wife and I decided that I would drop by Ikea and pick up a body form mattress topper, this is not a great description as it sounds like a sanitary towel for a 60 foot menstruating woman... Anyway, whilst there I was meant to pick up a couple of toilet brushes and a couple of winter duvets. You would not believe the difference it makes but of course it would not be a straightforward trip. Needless to say we guessed the size of our bed and duvet covers and therein lay the first problem.
As I was going to use the Ikea near Sterrebeek I was keen to get in and out before the inevitable rush hour traffic set in and the place was choking with mad people trying to get home. I naturally got straight in and decided to pretend I was a salmon and go up river against the flow of the traffic. Like most, I would imagine, I don't like the way they get you to follow the set route and never have a straight path through all the displays. I mean I just needed an express route, I did not want to joust with pushchairs or follow wandering nomads as they walked in their zombie like state looking for inspiration, I was a man with a mission and I had done my research too (on the UK site, which would prove to be a slight inconvenience).
I found the bedding department and after waiting for another customer to discuss the physics of mattresses with the assistant and shift, I then quickly checked the mattress toppers out and discovered and noted the required details for our 200 x 160 product. I then shifted target to the duvets.
Now we have had somewhat thin and feeble duvets for some time now and have never really taken the opportunity to change them, but after reminiscing about the cuddly and warm feeling of previous ownership, I managed to persuade An of the requirement to experience a more comfortable duvet. Now the UK have a TOG rating, which I believe runs from about 5 to 16 or so, the higher it is the heavier and warmer the duvet. I was kind of hoping that this was an international standard but no, the system in Belgium (and it may not be purely Belgian) was a number between 1 and 6, again the bigger the number the heavier. I think this is a case of kilometres and miles but I am not sure. SO I selected a nice heavy duvet and guessed that the size would be ok, we have two single duvet and in fact there was only 1 size so no real problem there.
Having done my research I then started zombie dodging my way to the warehouse, gabbing a couple of toilet brushes on the way (not as weapons you understand). I found the mattress and decided to go through the self-scan, quick eh? No, not when you have people with the technological dexterity of a blind elephant who has a leg in a caste. It seemed to take such a painfully long time for them to work out how to operate the equipment and scan their goods, there was an older couple, a heard of 25 somethings and someone who just couldn't care less. I took maybe a minute if that to scan, pay and move.
I already knew that the mattress topper would not fit in the boot of my rather nice car, the one I had decided was not going to be used to transport cargo, the one I had deliberately chosen not to have folding rear seats. Anyway, I had to get the mattress across the back seats of the car and, funny old thing, it was too big. To be honest it took just a small adjustment of moving the passenger seat forward and hey presto I only had to magic it in between the parked cars. Once I had squeezed my giant tampon into the car I got underway. I would be just the right person if I encountered a fuel spill or a small flood. I actually made pretty good time and was home about half an hour later.
As soon as I was home I unloaded the car, without being smacked in the face by the large tampon, it was spring loaded in the car. I decided that it would be best to measure the bed and duvet covers before risking unwrapping the stuff, just as well. This was when I discovered that the bed was in fact 200 x 140, I could have gone for the sanitary towel for the slightly smaller menstruating woman and avoided being smacked in the face as I got it out of the car. Cue another trip to Ikea the following day. The duvets were not a problem and lets face it you can't go wrong with toilet brushes...
On the Sat we hit Ikea before the bulk of the zombies turned up and returned the extra large tampon and were given instructions on where to find the slightly smaller (and cheaper one). We were given a plastic 'gift card' as they don't do refunds. Inconvenient but not a problem. We went to the aisle as directed and, WITHOUT CHECKING, picked the product off the shelf. We did check the size and take it from the location as described. We whipped it though checkout and noted that the price was considerably lower, we realised the error and then had to go back to returns, where they issued us with yet another plastic card. They could not just simply credit the existing one, too easy. To add insult to injury they then said WE should check before going through. The correct product was in a completely different location so it was an easy mistake for THEM to make!
Anyway we now have a very warm and comfortable bed, it was not bad to start with but now it is positively luxury.
The bit about the zip comes later, that was the start of a hectic week at work and the mini-dramas that unfolded, but more of that next time.
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