The Jeans Incident

The Jeans Incident

Just yesterday I was all happy because I bought a new pair of jeans and they are too big (yay, right!?) and although very comfy, I have to keep hiking them up a bit. No worries, they look better than my too-tight jeans and this means I'm losing weight, right? I'm smaller than I thought, yay!

So I wore them to work and as the day went on they somehow got bigger. Or I got smaller. One of the two. Possibly a combination of both. So I go with my boss to a meeting at a posh Barrister's office with our £500/hour lawyers and we're downtown London at this beautiful, old courthouse building in the sweltering heat and we're walking up these narrow old stairs in a conga-line of professionalism and expense.

What do I do?

I trip and fall down the stairs - and as I get up and brace myself against a wall my jeans fall down. To the floor. Around my ankles. Like a cartoon. My bare legs brightly displayed across the stair case.

I am standing there in horror, grasping at my legs and feeling only skin. They've all turned around to look and the lawyer behind me is having an internal battle of either lunging to help me or turning away and averting his eyes. I reach my pants with one hand while gripping the bannister with the other for fear of plummeting down again and am in such an awkward position that they won't slide all the way back up, they're hovering now around my thighs.

So I'm standing there in a panic desperately clutching at my jeans and pulling them back up (I've completely abandoned my bag at this point and another lawyer ran to get it) while my boss is looking at me with a mix of concern and sheer disbelief - the three lawyers were all fussing over me asking if I'm okay and I'm trying as best as possible to regain my composure and assure them that I'm fine. Pants are firmly back up around my waist, I'm breathing normally and we continue up the stairs - and as we do, every time we came to a slight dip in the next floor all four of them turned to me and said "be careful!".

Yep. Saw it, thanks. For like, 3 more flights of stairs.

So then, complete moron that I am, we go on all pretending as though this didn't just happen and sit around a posh conference table talking about a very serious matter and I start giggling. Breaking into chuckles and sniggers. It's going round in my head - are they thinking about it too? Are they waiting for me to leave so they can all laugh about it? Should I tell them that I'm diseased? Play the sympathy card? Oh god, they're all thinking about it. I can totally tell.

Someone asked me what I found so funny and I went on a spiel about "the irony of the case was just very amusing" Oh my god it was horrible. And then when I thought I had composed myself over further serious discussions the imagery popped back into my head and, I kid you not, I let out a Scooby Doo giggle. It sounded EXACTLY like Scooby Doo. You know the one - hee HEE hee hee hee.

It's a wonder some days how I am still employed.