October 20, 2010

Revealing Leg Vanna Style

Yesterday I was making my way around my classroom and dropping in on peer editing groups. I joined one group and was in the middle of telling my student that she should really avoid ending sentences with prepositions when I realized it was a bit drafty in my basement computer lab classroom that lacks any and all windows.

It was then that I glanced across the room and out of the corner of my eye, caught a view of skin that wasn't supposed to be there. With my left leg crossed over my right, the undone side seam of my upper thigh pant leg was gaping and making a huge diamond shape on my thigh of blind-you-with-the-whiteness skin.

I gasped and quickly put my hand over the hole in my pants. I mentally calculated the number of minutes I still had left in this class and the one after it. I instantly revised my lessons plans so I could sit for the next class with my legs under a desk and far out of view. I went back through time searching for something that would have ripped my pants. When did this happen? How did this happen? I bought these pants TWO weeks ago and have worn them exactly twice!

I quietly excused myself from the peer editing group, mumbling something about needing a tissue and made my way out into the hallway. As I walked, I looked down at my leg and gasped again. My pants weren't ripped. The side seam was just coming completely undone from the inside out.

I made my way down the hallway to one of my favorite secretary ladies and stuck my leg out, Vanna White style, for her to see. Her eyes got wide and she immediately started searching through her desk drawers for something, anything that would seal up my pants and allow me to return to the classroom and survive until my work day was over.

She found a small sewing kit, which seemed all kinds of promising, right up until I told her that all sewing done is our house is done by my husband. Instead she grabbed a safety pin. A nervous, partially nudist wreck, I fumbled in the bathroom until my pants were closed up the best I could get them without having to take my pants completely off. It reminded me of the time last year when my bra strap came completely undone as I was busy lecturing about annotated bibliographies. These count the two times in my life when I have been grateful for my allergies. One sniffle in front of an attentive class, and I can make an emergency run to the bathroom for nostril evacuation, or so they think.

I stopped back in the office to show the secretary my leg once again. She gave me a nod of approval.

By now, I figured my writing class would have figured out that I wasn't blowing my nose. I also realized that many of them had probably seen my pant leg slit during the 15 minutes that I took explaining to them what I wanted them to do. So I walked into the classroom and shamed them for not telling me I was revealing some serious leg.

They stared at me like I was an escaped lunatic. Not one of them had noticed, yet now they were ALL looking for the big reveal. Sometimes I forget that I teach at the crack of dawn and these kids can barely open their eyes. It's all kinds of wonderful for when you're having wardrobe malfunctions.

Thankfully, my safety pin and one strategically placed binder clip kept that thigh under wraps . . . for the most part.

The other day I told you my thighs and butt were big and hungry. Now there is proof. They clearly ate my side seam.