Do you know what’s great about pants?
Everything.
They are warm, if chosen properly they look good, they cover my naughty bits...
Well, I suppose that’s not “everything”, but you get the idea.
Something else I like about pants is that they are the great equalizer. Everyone has to wear them. At least, they do in our culture.
Yes, I know skirts and dresses aren’t pants, but that would ruin my analogy so pretend you didn’t notice. Oh, and shorts are close enough.
So as I was saying, everyone has to wear them. Rich, old, young, poor, man, or woman. Everyone puts them on one leg at a time. Actually, that’s not really true. You can put your pants on both legs at a time, but it doesn’t work quite as well. However, everyone DOES have to put both legs in. See? They ARE universal. Don’t judge me.
Because of these and many other reasons, I like pants. I don’t do skirts because, well, I’m a dude. I don’t do shorts as often because I have fantastically scrawny chicken legs. Although I’ve been told they do look good in a dress or skirt.
Don’t ask.
Something else I like that is a great equalizer is time. We all live in it. We all live with it. We all succumb to it. It guides us, gives us parameters within which to work and gives us a measure with which to help us all get to things at the same time.
And I do like to be on time for things. This does not mean that I always am, mind you, only that I try to be as often as possible.
I also like to think that everyone else likes this as well, but I’m pretty confident that is not true. Some people are either so disorganized or so laid back, that they are never on time for anything, ever. I am so glad I’m better than all of them.
Or at least, that is often what we are thinking when we find ourselves waiting around for someone to show up when we got there on time, and they are 40 minutes late, and we are brainstorming the words with which we will filet them like a piece of meat before punting them through a random window because it would serve them right.
Maybe i’m the only one who’s had that fantasy...
Have you ever done that? Had major anger fantasies at someone because of some random and ultimately unimportant thing they did or didn’t do which ended with you righteously and justifiably pummeling them into humiliating submission and everyone cheers your name, realizing you are the virtuous one and that your victim is formed from raw evil?
It is a curious thing how we are capable of taking even the most unimportant of occurrences and making it personal, turning it into major drama.
Us: “...and then I kicked him repeatedly in the junk followed by a samurai ninja kung fu strike to the heart, stopping it for an entire minute before striking him again to restart it, just to show him who he’s messing with!”
Random person forced to listen to our story: “All of that because he slipped on the ice and accidentally jostled your coffee?”
There is a reason it’s called “blind rage”. When we have it, we can’t see anything else. Not the person, the context, ourselves... only the need to satiate the rage.
This often ends with us embarrassing ourselves in terrible ways without ever realizing we have done so. Humans can justify anything, it seems.
So, as I said earlier, I like to be on time for things. Especially if I am key to the events taking place to which I am going. Like, for example, if I am going to church and I am the one preaching. Being late to your own sermon is what is referred to as “unprofessional.” Actually, you will probably be lucky if that’s all they say about you. Sometimes Christians aren’t very... christian.
On one particular morning, my wife was running late. Now, let me be clear. My wife is NOT always late. She’s not even USUALLY late. But sometimes stuff happens and alarm clocks go afoul and blowdryers don’t blow and previous evening’s dinners don’t sit well by morning.
I was up and ready in plenty of time. Made sure the potluck food was ready to go. Made sure my sermon notes were snuggly safe inside my bible. Made sure my cereal dish was washed and dried. Made sure my bladder was empty. Twice.
Then I sat and waited very patiently for my lovely wife. And waited. And waited. I waited an entire 30... 40... seconds, at least, before I became frustrated with her slow prep and departure schedule for the morning.
Finally, I could wait no more. I got up, told her I was going to be in the car waiting (hoping that would encourage her to hurry up and not make me late), double checked my tie in the full length mirror, put on my suit jacket and checked it’s straightness in the same full length mirror, grabbed my shoes, sat in the chair by the garage door and proceded to put on said shoes.
I was half way through tying the first shoe when I noticed something very important.
I had no pants on.
I had sat waiting on my wife, doing nothing. I had checked myself in the full length mirror not once, but twice. I had even noticed at one point how the kitchen was feeling very “drafty” for some reason.
Did I mention the full length mirror? Checked twice?
How did I not notice that I was not wearing pants? I promise you, this is not something I do on any regular basis. I can be forgetful and even absent minded, but I am not THAT bad.
To say that I felt stupid would be a gross insult to the word “stupid”. But the real question is why did I do that in the first place?
The answer is simple. I was frustrated with my wife. I was so frustrated and cranky that she was possibly going to make me late(notice the word “possibly” there), I was so focused on her that I didn’t see me.
I was blinded by my own anger.
As it turned out, by the time I took off my one shoe, went and found my pants, put them on, and got to the car, my wife was already sitting inside it, patiently waiting for me with her always beautiful smile.
In the end, I was the one who made us late. Not a lot late, only enough to annoy me.
Focusing on the faults of others only allows us to ignore our own problems. It definitely doesn’t solve theirs. Growth and change only happen after we take responsibility for our own issues and stop worrying about everybody else's issues.
It’s much harder to get angry with someone when we recognize that we do stuff that’s even dumber than someone else and, in fact, we are the same as them and no better. Otherwise, we can blind ourselves to our weakness and not see that it is truly there.
And no one likes getting caught with their pants down.
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