Why Are You Wearing My Pants?

I named the blog in honor of my sister, whose primary joy in life is watching me embarrass myself in front of strangers. One of the happiest moments of her life was when I rolled out of a camping cot, down a small hill, strangled in a sleeping bag, in front of 20 strangers on a heinously awkward Colorado camping trip after being forced to sing a song called “Sandwiches Are Beautiful” by the light of the campfire.  Wherever and whenever I am embarrassing myself in life, she is somewhere lurking in the background, laughing.

Senior year of college, I ran the university’s club tennis team. The position involved organizing a number of tournaments, which mainly took place on Saturday mornings, which I was mainly hungover for.

The morning of the spring tournament everything was already going poorly. I got to the courts, late. Kids were already warming up. I dragged my bag of prizes to the center and began to present them.

“And for our 3rd place winner, we have this pack of pink tennis balls. They are pink because they support breast cancer… Actually, no… They are in fact anti-breast… cancer.”

Durr.

After announcing the breast-supporting prizes I retreated to the grass to watch the matches. My sister was somewhere out on the courts, I strained my tired eyes and found her, sitting against a fence.

She was wearing my pants.

My black, Adidas, white-stripe-down-the-side, pants.

How did she get my pants?

She stole them.

SHE WAS WEARING MY PANTS.

I marched right over to her.

“ARE YOU WEARING MY PANTS?!?!?!?! YOU BEAST!!”

“…….Uh….. um… no? I don’t think so?””

I looked again. This was not my sister. This was a small, freshman girl who I had never seen before. It was probably her first event with the club, and here I was, barking at her face to stop wearing my pants.

“Oh. You aren’t my sister.”

I turned abruptly and walked out of the courts. My real sister stood on the other side of the fence, snickering.

And the girl who was not wearing my pants, she never came back… But the story of the pants of which she was not wearing lives on.