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!
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