Day 7 – 365 Days of Memories – Was My Face Red!

Question for Today:  What was Your Most Embarrassing Teen-Age Moment?

I decided before I began this journey down Memory Lane that  I didn’t want to write in a linear fashion that began with birth and continued through my life.  When a memory popped into my mind I wanted to grab it right then and commit it to paper.

So here goes…  My most embarrassing teen-age moment.

I think I was fifteen.  Maybe sixteen.

It involved a brand-new pair of jeans, summer, a softball game, and a slide into second base.

There were no discount stores in our tiny town then, just a store named “Hazel Harper’s”.

Hazel’s didn’t carry cheap clothes, and so for most of my teen-age life, after I began caring about how what I wore looked like, I wore zip-up, button top Lee Jeans from Hazel Harper’s.  In blue jeans color and in what was called “wheat jeans” in a lightish, whitish, wheat-colored, tan.

And tight.

There was no stretch in the jeans in those days, so you had to lay down on the bed to get them zipped and buttoned when they came out of the dryer.

But this brand-new pair of jeans weren’t my favorite “Lee” brand.   I had been watching the ads in the teen magazines, and so I decided to go for a different brand of jeans. Went to a store in Wichita, and came home with a brand that I’d never worn.

Because I have no desire to get on the wrong side of a lawsuit, that widely popular brand of jeans shall remain nameless here.

So I bought these new jeans, threw them in the washer and the dryer, laid down on the bed to get them zipped up and then snapped the top shut.

And this is where it matters.

I snapped the top shut.

And went off to play softball against a rival team.

The jeans fit fine. Snug, they moved with my every move, and towards the end of the game, I led off of first and headed to steal second.

The girl covering second had to tag me, not the base, for me to be out, and when I saw the ball land in her mitt, we both raced for second, and I slid down to the dirt, and slid in, feet first.

Safe.

Or thought I was.

Then I stood up.

My jeans – didn’t.

The top snap had snapped, and popped open.

The zipper slid down

My jeans just didn’t quite get all the way up when I did.

I grabbed denim as fast as I could. Yanked the jeans up with me by the belt loops.

Maybe the only one who saw my ‘tighty-whitey’ underwear, and my embarrassment, was the second base ump.

My best friend’s brother….

But he got a glimpse.

Maybe everyone did.

I was mortified.

No one said a word, not even the ump.

I don’t remember whether we won the game that day, or lost it.

But I do remember that I never wore those jeans again without a belt to keep them up where they belonged….

And I went back to my favorite brand of Lee jeans when I bought the next pair.