Pants

Patrick came downstairs one morning last week wearing two pairs of pants.

“Patrick!” I said exasperated “take one of those off and go and put on your uniform, you don’t need two pairs of pants on.”

“He does if he is playing golf” pipes up Emilia.

“What? Why would he need two pairs of pants to play golf?” I said, in all innocence.

“In case he gets a hole in one” she replies.

Not bad for 7.30am. Certainly too early for me, and for Patrick clearly, who put in, “or if I am playing cricket.”  

I tried explain that cricket didn’t work with the punch line, but that joke had gone over his head, he was thinking the extra pair was going to protect his balls from the cricket ball.

Later on, I discovered that he had not taken off the second pair and had worn them both all day. Briefs over boxer shorts– not a great look, hope he didn’t have PE.

I remember Ben doing the same thing on occasion and absent-mindedly putting on two pairs, either that, or wearing one pair twisted so that his waist was through the tight leg hole and a baggy waist was around one thigh. How that could not feel totally uncomfortable and wrong all day, I don't know.

He obviously has a high discomfort threshold. Once, Ben forgot to take his pants off when getting changed for school swimming. He just put his swim shorts over the top. He only realised when he came to get changed again. He was only 5 at the time and not knowing what to do about it, just put his school trousers over the top of his wet pants.

Rachel has no such inhibitions about going commando and we’ll frequently discover halfway through the day that she isn’t wearing any pants at all. She dresses herself mostly and goes straight for the trousers. Clearly she thinks knickers are over rated.

There must be some family ‘pant blindness’ gene going on here.  The children’s Great Grandmother was living in an old folks’ home where she kept insisting that someone had stolen all her knickers. It was later revealed she was in fact actually wearing eight pairs. That is one way to keep warm I suppose.

I am not sure what it is about having warm bottoms, but another pant incident happened when we were children, when my Granny on the other side of the family came to stay with us. She wanted to warm her knickers before she put them on, so she laid her great thermal bloomers on the grill pan and put them under the grill to warm up. (Presumably she didn’t have a radiator in her room.) Anyway, she forgot about them and they burned and she was forever after known as Granny Grilled-her-knickers.

Let that be a lesson, Grannies and hot pants are never a good combination.