|
 “I
have a bug in my pants! I have a bug in my pants!” was the prideful
pronouncement repeated over and over by my tiny son. I couldn’t
figure out what he was talking about. I asked him to stop prancing
around so I could see said bug. It was his fly! He was out of
training pants and into big boy tighty-whities. It’s so much fun
being a boy mom.
He truly got me to thinking. Why was it called a fly? Wikipedia, “A
fly (short for fly-front) is a strip of material covering an opening
on the crotch area of trousers, closed often by a zipper. On men’s
garments, the fly always opens on the wearer’s right side; on
women’s garments, it may open either on the left or on the right.”
Herein lies my big complaint of the day. I. Hate. Zippers. I looked
to see who invented the dratted thing. It began with Elias Howe in
1851 (Howe also invented the sewing machine) but it was never
commercially produced. In 1893 Whitcombe Judson made an early
attempt at a fastener system resembling a zipper which he showed at
the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair but it was unreliable. In 1913 Gideon
Sundback finally gave us what we now know as the zipper.
“Zippers…. Where precision engineering meets the art of fastening.”
Oh, yeah? Well….well…who in the world can easily fasten a double
zipper? My research points to the same Mr. Sundback for the
origination of the double zipper. Bless his little zippery mind.
I bought a new coat online. If I had realized it had a double
zipper, I never would have ordered it. I was left with the decision
to return it by wrapping it up, labeling it, dragging it down to the
post office and never getting any credit for it; or keeping it. I
kept it.
I cannot for the life of me line up the zipper exact enough to
attain any success at being able to pull up the device. Once again,
I fled to the internet to see how many parts I was trying to manage.
I literally stopped counting at 22 parts. There’re the teeth, the
puller, the lug, the connector, so on and so forth. No wonder it
won’t work.
Taking a deep breath to soothe my mind I once again tried to connect
the insertion pin into the pin box to get the slider to work. With
my trifocals it is impossible. I read, “Zippers----proof that tiny
inventions can have a huge impact.” It is so very true. After a
dozen or so valiant attempts at zipping my new coat, I had
success…..only to impact myself in my mouth with my suddenly
available flying fist. It totally wasn’t worth the effort.
This awesome new coat of mine has three snaps that cover the “fly”
of the coat. Yep---short for fly-front. Without being able to zip it
up, these three snaps are wonderful at letting the winter wind whip
right into my coat and set my teeth chattering.
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Whilst running my research on double zipper coats, I saw a beautiful
model explaining that we are all wearing our hoods wrong on our
coats. The big fur liner is not for show on our hoods at all. It is
to be tucked in, then we batten down the hatches with the under-chin
snap and tie a jaunty bow as we pull the cozy cloth tightly about
our smiling face. Try it. It works as well as the double zipper. The
faux fur makes it terribly slippery and I can’t keep it on my head.
As the hood slips off, it shows the result of the faux fur and
lining creating static electricity as if you were doing the classic
high school experiment. My hair stood out in every direction waving
wildly in the wind. That effect certainly didn’t happen when the
model demonstrated it. Hmmmph!
That reminds me of the time I walked all over the community college
campus with a pair of my underpants static clinging to my back. I
returned to college in my 40’s so the “average” student was a little
leery of me anyway. The young girl sitting next to me was grossed
out and pointing at my back. She scared me. I imagined all kinds of
creep crawly things on me. I crossed my eyes and strained my neck to
see what holy terror was slithering on me. I saw my white grammy
panties sticking to my black T-shirt. Good grief. I quickly ripped
them off and stuffed my unders into my sock. I don’t know why. I was
embarrassed and just wanted to be rid of them. My little seatmate
would not settle down. She kept shuddering and shrieking that the
old lady (yes, me) was a pantie freak. The professor walked in and
commanded silence. She looked directly at me and demanded an
explanation. I looked away hoping for a reprieve. Not to be. She
walked over to my seat, holding out her hand commanding me to hand
over whatever the object of the class distraction was. I pleaded the
5th. I said I had the right against self-incrimination. She firmly
waggled her hand for me to hand it over. As I pulled my panties out
of my sock, they must have stretched a foot. I just kept pulling and
they just kept extending. With my hand over my head, they gave a
mighty snap and came untangled from my stocking. I handed them to
the professor. Her look was one of fascinated horror. The class
erupted into hysterics. I wanted to crawl under my desk. The student
next to me was still hissing in distress. You can’t make this stuff
up. The instructor waved away my underpants, sat at her desk, and
slowly shook her head.
So, be it flys..zippers…hoodies…socks or underpants…. remember that
life is far too short to take embarrassment seriously.
L. Maxine McQueen may be contacted at
maxmac.1@juno.com
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