Losing The War On Pants

One more dead soldier from the battle field, torn and tattered, now tossed in a small plastic bag to be carried off to an unknown grave. Four have fallen…only a few remain. The War On Pants, folks, is pretty serious business. My job here is a fairly active one. I spend a lot of times chasing, jumping, running, somersaulting, rolling, spinning and sliding. The sliding is what has become the cause of this great War On Pants. The sliding and my pants greatest enemy, our foe and fiendish adversary: the classroom carpet. Company class carpets (say that three times fast) are rather ridged pieces of carpeting. Most of pretty worn due to constant kid use and each piece of carpet becomes small teeth waiting to gnash the pants of any adult foolish enough to challenge them. I keep coming back to the fight after many battles. The victims of such fights are as follows:

THE BLACK SLACKS: The black slacks fell early. They were old pants, not ready for such hard fighting. Their battles had past them, their fighting done. They were like an old boxer believing they had one left in them only to find themselves with a face full of canvass. They tore in the crotch in the middle of a third jumping jack. The tearing sounded like a great battle cry. I managed to maintain a sitting position for the rest of the lesson before carrying my wounded pants back home. I tried to save them but it was too late. They were gone. The first victim in the year long war between pants and classroom and the only one that wasn’t felled by the carpet. They were good pants but not yet lived in as they had been purchased second hand only a month or so before departing for Japan. I hardly miss them and at the time didn’t think tossing a pair of pants would be such a bad thing. I, after all, had so many more.

THE BEIGE SLACKS: This was a tough loss. These pants have been with me through many of life’s twists and turns. I’ve had them for at least five years and they mold themselves to the contours of my body despite natural weight fluctuations. They were the second choice to come with me on the trip and I figured they still had a few good years in them. Alas, they fell to the teeth of the carpet after a sliding attempt to save a ball heading through my goal line during an early welcome game. The hole was the size of a fist by the end of the lesson. The beige pants saw the trash bag latter that night. Two down. The lesson learned here was to avoid hard sliding on the carpet during games and I have been cautious of this since losing the beige slacks.

THE JEANS: Yet where one pair of pants can be torn in an instant another pair can be widdled down, slowly beaten until they can not take any more. Thus is the case with the jeans. Jeans are built tough. You expect a lot from a good pair of jeans. Jeans, quite frankly, you let me down. The tear came from months of kneeling. I should have noticed the left knee in you was getting soft but I, well, jeans, I just thought you could take it. I was wrong. You were slowly ground, I admit, into the carpet and, yeah, you’re about five years old, but you are suppose to be the leather of pants…expect, ummm, those leather pants, and like leather you are supposed to be tough. You were pimped out, jeans. You got served! Though torn jeans are pretty cool in Japan I buck this trend. It’s not the 1980s anymore. I’m not Joe Elliot. That tear in the left knee doesn’t look cool to me. Jeans, you know what it looks like to me? It looks like defeat! It looks like failure. I take the blame, jeans…not for grinding you into the carpet week in and week out. I take the blame for believing in you. I haven’t tossed you in the plastic like your fallen brethren just yet. I want you to sit there, in the dark, thinking about what you’ve done…what a disgrace you have become to your denim race. Think long and hard, jeans. You could have taken that carpet.

THE BROWN SLACKS: I’m actually surprised these guys lasted as long as they did. They showed signs of being on the verge of a rip back in Canada before the suitcase and the flight and the lessons but they’ve held up. You listening to that, jeans? The brown slacks, in the end, would not be ripped in a lesson but in a staff meeting. I am not quite sure, actually, how the brown slacks become torn. They were fine one moment and then the next a small tear sat there on the right knee. Another one bites the dust. I think these guys just committed suicide. I wasn’t kneeling. There was no sliding. No grinding. Just a hole in the knee like a bullet to the head. Maybe the brown slacks saw that it’s day was coming and like Hunter Thompson just did themselves in before age did it for them. Or maybe the brown slacks just had been fighting too long with the depression left after seeing so many friends fall in such a short time. Whatever the reason, the brown slacks are gone now and slowly my closet space is opening up but my ass is being giving fewer choices on which to cover itself.

THE CORDS: The Cords are not dead yet but, man, a soft breeze is going to blow those things away any time now. I can see it. The Cords, unlike any of the pants before them, have put up with a lot of abuse. They have been pulled on, drawn on, kicked and smacked and like Timex they take that licking and keep on…ummm…cording. (What, cording is an actual word? Who knew? Guess who ups his vocabulary count today?!?!) If you hold the cords up to the light you can actually see through them in parts. In these places they are no longer corduroy. They are mesh in the making. Like the beige slacks the cords have been with me for many years. In fact, I’d call them my favorite pair of pants. They just go with my choice of colors when it comes to T-shirt and they were extremely comfortable. I’m wearing them now as I type this knowing that they probably won’t be making the trip back home. Like the final kiss of two lovers torn apart, the cords and I are clinging but the inevitable is falling over us like a dark shadow. It’s over. Both of us don’t want to admit it but it’s over.

In a way, losing five pairs of pants in my year here is a blessing. This weekend I did a mock packing job to see if I was able to fit the gifts I have amassed for you fine folks back home along with my wardrobe and it was a tight squeeze that didn’t accommodate everything. Something was going to have to go. The torn pants are making the choices for themselves. The needs of the presents outweigh the needs of the pants. Pants can be repurchased but Japanese novelty gift items cannot be. We had a good run, pants. Know you died serving your owner and he appreciates your sacrifice. I hope your days covering my lower extremities were joyous ones and please know that all food stains were not meant as insults. You’ve covered my ass for many years and I love you for it. Remember, as the saying goes, all pants die…not all pants truly live.