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Friday, December 17, 2004

Promises, promises

It has been brought to my attention that I had made promises earlier about recounting another incident of the Wetting of the Pants and posting pictures of the Room Rearrangement Process. I apologize for the delay, and blame it on the apple sauce that I have been consuming too much of lately. Regarding the pictures, I will need to solve some technical problems first. It’s not difficult to post them one by one, but as I have a little bit more time now in the holidays, I would like to figure out a way to publish them as an album. I don’t know when that will be, but I would like to think that the pictures will remain in the hard drive, the room will remain in the house, and that I will continue to be here, so there is no hurry.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present you with the Wetting of the Pants, part 2.
You may read Part 1 here.

Wetting of the Pants: Part 2

On most mornings, I leave the house with a mug of tea. I like feeling of warm fluid rushing into my stomach, and it makes me warmer when I’m cold, and drinking gives me something to do physically while I sit on a stone hard bench from 8-10 three mornings a week. On that particular morning, I carried my mug of hot tea – in freshly boiled water so it’ll still be hot when I get to class – out to the car, where I put it in the cup holder between the driver and myself. I don’t place the mug in a particular fashion, and the most I do is wiggle it around in the cup holder to make sure it’s settled in properly. That morning the handle of the mug faced my legs, next to which sat my backpack. When my dad stopped the car near my class, I rushed to get out because we’re in the middle of the road and I always picture miles of cars behind us and all the drivers cursing me under their breath, whether there are actual cars behind us or not.

As I got up to leave, lifting up my backpack, the straps caught on to my mug, swiftly taking it out of cup holder and tipping it towards me. I got the mug for free at an orientation, and it doesn’t have a stopper at the opening, so tea rushed out of the opening onto the spot next to my left thigh. I froze. My right elbow was leaning against the opened door, my butt was not quite off the seat but not exactly sitting on it either, the mug was still caught on the straps of my backpack, still tipping, water still flowing. I managed to react fast enough and twist so that I narrowly missed the stream of water. I don’t know where that skill came from, but it’s definitely going on my resume. Even though I didn’t come in direct contact with the water, I could feel how hot it was. It was hot. When it reached the seat, it immediately spread out on the material, wetting my pants a little. Everything felt suspended and it took me a while to grab hold of the mug and stop the flow of water. I was scared. I was scared of making my dad angry, of staining everything, of pissing of the potentially profane drivers behind our car, of walking around with soaking pants the whole day. Do I stay in the car, do I get out and leave it, what was I supposed to do?

My dad was nice about the whole thing. He was more concerned about me not getting burned. I got out of the car partially, looking at my dad with a “what about the seat? I’m so sorry!” expression, and he just shrugged and told me not to be late for class. He didn’t care about the seat, there was only a tiny wet spot on my left thigh, and everything was fine.

But wait, there’s more.

The lecture hall I have my first class in on Tuesdays and Thursdays have soft, relatively comfortable seats with tiny pull-out trays that some idiot thought would be ideal for students to write exams on. The seats are close together and I usually sit near the middle so no one’s sitting next to me on my left, allowing me to have an extra “desk” to put my mug, my writing utensils, my head, whatever. On that day, a classmate sat on my left. I was such a hogger that I actually put my stuff on her flip out tray and she had to write on her leg. If that image shows anything, it shows how much I suck, and it shows how nice the classmate is.

At the end of class, my mug of tea (not quite finished, I do not know why) was sitting on top of the classmate’s tray/table, and when she stood up, she tipped it and it fell towards her. Shrieking, she immediately whacked it away from her, which, incidentally, happened to be towards me. The mug flew and flopped upside down on my lap. I had mentioned that the mug was free, which means that the top doesn’t stay on very well. Miraculously, when it fell upside down into my lap, the top stayed on. I couldn’t believe it. After I cleaned up the spillage, which was minimal, I regarded the mug with awe. And then I threw it away.

Just kidding. I still have it.

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