It’s the day before classes start for spring semester and I have a full day planned. I started my morning at the campus gym on the treadmill and then was heading to my office to work on course prep for tomorrow class meetings. One major problem: I was planning on showering and changing into work clothes at the gym, but I forgot to bring pants. PANTS. I don’t know about y’all, but for me, pants are kind of essential.

Fine, fine. In all honesty, it was leggings I was planning to wear. Leggings with an entirely modest, butt-covering tunic, tall boots, etc. So I forgot my leggings, which I realized as I was completing my cool down run. I had a few options: 1) go back home after my workout and shower and change there, 2) shower and change at the gym as planned, putting my running capri tights back on in lieu of pants, then driving home to grab pants and heading back to work, or 3) just…wearing my sweaty running tights all day.

Option one would waste too much time — showering and changing at home, with the pets and the distractions? I might as well just stay home if I did that. I was leaning toward option two, until I realized that maybe, just maybe, I could disguise the fact that I was wearing sweaty, capri-length running tights instead of pants. I had knee socks and leg warmers with me, which I arranged just so in order to cover the hem of the tights right below my knee. They were icky with cold, damp sweat, but maybe no one would be able to see or smell that? They’re a bold pattern, but it’s neutral and maybe kind of goes with my top? Enh?

So here I am at work, dressed in the outfit I intended from the waist up, and just hoping not to run into anyone too important. I’m so glad this didn’t happen on a teaching day. Really though, this outfit would be totally FINE with plain black running tights, which are barely distinguishable from leggings anyway (more seams, usually, and sometimes more shine). Why didn’t I wear black capris? Or, you know, REMEMBER MY GOT DANGED PANTS.

Leaving the house this morning was a real pain in the butt, actually, which is probably how the pants got forgotten. In the bathroom, I dropped a bottle of perfume on the tile floor and I don’t need to tell you how much fun that was to clean up. Little shards of glass everywhere, fumes, and — of course — the bitter frustration arising from the fact that I’d JUST BOUGHT the perfume a couple of months ago. Sad, sad start to the day.

So I smashed my perfume; I forgot my pants; I’m wearing sweaty running tights. Can’t wait until I can go home and pour myself an ice-cold glass of…water. Hmpf.