A car honked as it drove past me and I waved at the driver cheerfully. I wondered if I knew the person, but it was only a passing thought. It must have been about mid-day and I was walking down the sidewalk near a busy downtown shopping district. The sun was out in full today, not a cloud in the sky, and I was in fairly high spirits. It was a perfectly stereotypical nice day. I could even hear birds singing.

I smiled at the people I passed, not paying any attention to how they gave me a wide berth or simply stared back with stupid expressions. People are just like that, nowadays. Be friendly to a stranger and they just think you must be some lunatic or pervert. I wasn't gonna let that get me down. It was just too nice a day, warm with a slight cool breeze. Though as I came to think of it, I was getting rather cold.

And then I realized I wasn't wearing any pants.

I did the only rational thing I could think of at the time and dove into the nearest bush. Unfortunately, it was a rosebush and the thorns were only too happy to tear into my bare legs. I quietly told myself to man up and deal with it. There were more pressing matters to attend to.

The day was not so nice now. It was cold and I was bleeding. I took in my situation and summed it up thusly: I was downtown. My house was on the other side of the city. I had no pants on, and I didn't have any cash. (Could be that I left my wallet in my pants pocket.)

Solution: Run home and get some pants. Also, thank the powers that be for underwear.

"ROAR!" I shouted in dinosaur to voice my agitation and then jumped out of the bush. I'm afraid I must have frightened the poor woman who was walking her Yorkshire terrier nearby, but I didn't have time to apologize.

I fell into an easy run, thankful for those years running cross country and yet feeling that today had to be the worst day to wear tighty-whities. I weaved around some distressed pedestrians and then decided to stick to allies while I still could. One more positive thing about running in your underwear: the hobos don't ask you for change.

Well, one did. I came to a sudden stop when a filthy man with a beard I could only dream on having stepped into my path. He stopped in his tracks as well and gawked at me. He was wearing a sheet and yet he looked at me as if I were the weird one. Then he had the audacity to ask, "Could you spare some change, mister?"

"That depends," I said, "Can you spare some pants?"

He shook his head and moved on, which was good because I didn't have any change.

I had to stop again once I reached the first cluster of houses a few blocks from the downtown stores. School had just been dismissed for the day, and a troop of school-children were being ushered across the street by a large woman in an unflattering orange vest holding a stop sign. I thought that maybe I could go one street over, and then continue up in the direction I had been heading. That was the plan anyway, until one little girl spotted me standing nearby and shouted "STRANGER DANGER!"

I was sure the rules of stranger danger did not apply in this situation, seeing as the girl was surrounded by others and I wasn't even talking to her, but that didn't seem to matter to the cross-walk woman. As her eyes bugged out to take in the entirety of my pants-less person, I decided that I may as well keep right on the most straight-forward path in my journey.

"CHARGE!" I yelled and ran right toward the kids. They screamed and scattered predictably, but the large woman began chasing after me, smacking me with the stop sign.

"PEDOPHILE!" She screeched every time the sign connected with my body. Women can be like that I suppose. I shifted my run into a full sprint and quickly lost the most corpulent one.

Trouble is, I guess someone had called the cops, 'cause after a few more blocks were behind me, I started to see them cruising the neighborhood. I had to keep ducking behind mail boxes, trees, and other convenient items as they passed. I cut behind one house when a particularly nosy vehicle turned the corner up ahead. There I found a clothesline with what I perceived as a gift from the gods. You might usually call them a pair of trousers.

I did the only sensible thing in the situation and pulled them on. They were a little damp, but I figured beggars can't be choosers. Then I puzzled over who still has a clothesline in this day and age when there are so many nice dryers to be had.

I walked back out to the street just as the cop car was passing. They slowed to a stop and beckoned me over. I guess the sight of a guy wandering around the side of a house wearing pants that were too big and no shoes would be kind of suspicious.

"Afternoon, sir. How are you today?"

"Fine, how 'bout yourself?"

"Well, we're looking for a guy who was seen near an elementary school nearby. It was reported that he wasn't wearing any pants."

"That is just deplorable!" I exclaimed. The cop seemed surprised by my vehemence. "I used to go to that school! Hell, my little sister goes there now, y'know? Is everyone okay?"

"Yes… Yes everyone's fine." I thought this cop would look pretty darn good with a mustache, but that was beside the point.

"Well I just can't believe some perverts. What's the world coming to? They say it will end soon. You believe that?"

"I really can't say."

"Can't or won't, eh?" I leaned over and winked at him. His partner chuckled from the driver's seat.

"Well, you'll be on the lookout then," said the officer who would look good mustachioed.

"You bet I will, officer. But he may be a little beaten up when I hand him over."

He laughed lightly, "You leave that job to us, will ya?"

I stood there waving at their vehicle until they turned a corner out of sight, then I sprinted in the other direction. Now that I had some pants on, it was easy to move around in public. Unfortunately, I had to run while holding up my pants on account of how big they were. At one point, someone shouted, "You're not gangsta, SO WEAR PANTS THAT FIT!" These people were absolutely right. I am not a gangster.

I had finally reached my side of town when I saw a man crouched behind a dumpster. He didn't appear to be wearing any pants, either. I ran over to him and jogged in place as he looked up at me, clearly embarrassed to be caught in such an indent predicament.

"You too, huh?"

He didn't say anything. I shrugged and stopped jogging so I could pull off my trousers. He watched me with a bamboozled expression as I explained, "I'm nearly home anyway, so you can take these. I was gonna return them to that house later, but this is for a good cause."

He took the trousers and stared at them, then he looked at me and said, "My girlfriend locked me out of the apartment."

"Really?" I said, "That sucks."

Then I kept jogging.

I jogged right into a street and was hit by a car.

Don't worry. It had been slowing down for a stop sign so I just fell over. The driver was really worried though, especially when I stood up and he could see that I wasn't wearing any pants.

"The hell?" He rightly inquired.

"Well gee, you knocked the pants right off me!" I said before running off again.

I hoisted myself over a fence in my neighborhood that I knew to be a good shortcut, but I guess the folks living there had gotten a dog since I last came that way. It was a Chow Chow. That may be a cute name, and they may look like adorable puff balls, but they are Satan's choice of dog. This one, a male as far as I could guess with a mane of red fur, snarled at me and attacked.

Call me a softie, but I just can't hit a dog. Instead I screamed until the owner came outside. In the confusion of her screaming and also calling off the dog, I was able to leap over the fence again and be on my way. Later, I would call the doctor to be sure I didn't have rabies, but right then, I was just a block from home.

"Hi, Helen," I called to my neighbor.

"… Where are your pants?"

"Beats the hell out of me! Isn't it a nice day?"

"It sure is!"

I really like Helen.

Finally, I was in the security of my own home. I pulled on a nice pair of jeans and settled onto the sofa to inspect my battered feet. They were pretty dirty but I'd survive.

Then I realized that I had driven my car downtown.